Heart scarring was detected more than one year after COVID-19 vaccination in some people who suffered myocarditis following receipt of a shot, researchers reported in new studies. The Epoch Times has more.
A third of 60 patients with follow-up cardiac imaging done more than 12 months after their myocarditis diagnosis had persistent late gadolinium enhancement (LGE), which is, in the majority of cases, reflective of heart scarring, Australian researchers reported in a preprint of a new study, published on March 22nd. Myocarditis is a form of heart inflammation.
The median time from receipt of a vaccine to follow-up imaging was 548 days, with the longest interval being 603 days.
“We found that the incidence of persistent myocardial fibrosis is high, seen in almost a third of patients at over 12 months post diagnosis, which could have implications for the management and prognosis of this predominantly young cohort,” the researchers wrote.
“The long-term clinical implications of LGE in this condition are as yet unknown, but LGE has been demonstrated to confer worse prognosis in non-COVID-19 vaccine-associated myocarditis, especially if it persists beyond six months,” they added later, pointing to several previous papers. …
In the other recent paper, researchers in Canada reported finding about half of patients referred for imaging due to possible post-vaccination myocarditis had persistent LGE in follow-up imaging.
Overall, 60 patients were included in the retrospective study. Of those, seven reported persistent symptoms.
In a subset of 21 patients for whom follow-up MRIs were available, 10 had persistent LGE, the researchers said. On the other hand, function of the left ventricle, which pumps blood, had normalised in all patients. …
The new papers add to earlier studies, which found that LGE persists for months in some people following a COVID-19 shot.
Researchers in Washington state reported in 2022 that LGE persisted in children for up to eight months after vaccination. Later that year, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said that more than half of 151 patients with follow-up imaging had residual LGE, which was described as “suggestive of myocardial scarring”.
The CDC has longer-term data on the patients, the agency confirmed to the Epoch Times in January, but has not yet published another paper describing those data. The CDC, which failed to warn the public about the risk of post-vaccination myocarditis, declined to comment on the new Australian and Canadian papers.
Read More: Heart Scarring Detected Over One Year After COVID-19 Vaccination, Two New Studies Find