Objective: To explore the myocardiac injury in patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and its clinical significance.
Methods: 37 SARS patients fulfilled the Guangdong provincial diagnostic criteria for infectious atypical pneumonia and 35 health controls were investigated. The serum levels of creatine kinase (CK), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), aspartate transaminase (AST), troponin I (TnI), creatine kinase-MB (CK-MB) and myoglobin (MYO) were measured.
Results: CK, LDH and AST levels in patients were higher than those of control group (P < 0.01); furthermore, among patients the levels were higher in fatal cases than in survivors. The positive rates of TnI, CK-MB and MYO in patients were higher than those in controls (P < 0.05).
Conclusion: The patients with SARS are subject to complicating myocardiac injury. Therefore, careful monitoring of the myocardiac enzyme profiles is of great importance in reducing the complications and mortality in patients with SARS.