The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic was a great burden for health care worldwide. We encountered 21 non-infected adult patients during 2020 who deferred to seek medical treatment since they thought that their difficulties to breathe were due to COVID-19. They were diagnosed late with cardiac disease with the indication for surgery. Deferred surgery for aortic stenosis was the cause of death in 1 patient. Long-standing not-treated endocarditis had caused severe aortic root pathology in 3 patients. Late-diagnosed ST-elevation myocardial infarction in 2 patients had caused papillary muscle and ventricular wall rupture. Eighteen of the patients finally underwent heart surgery at our tertiary care centre with early mortality of 22%. We conclude that late diagnosis of subjects requiring surgical treatment for heart disease was a risk for dismal outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords: Cardiac surgery; Coronavirus disease 2019; Delayed treatment.
© The Author(s) 2022. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the European Association for Cardio-Thoracic Surgery.