LAUSR

An increasing number of articles have been published in the last months describing echocardiographic findings in patients with ‘severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)’ [coronavirus disease (COVID)] disease [1]. Nevertheless, the clinical and prognostic role of this methodology is far to be defined due to the extreme heterogeneity of findings, referable to different factors. First, a patient bias selection, because some societies [1,2] state that an echocardiogram should be performed only in ‘selected’ patient, due to potential infectious risks for personnel staff. Second, study populations differ for disease severity (mild–moderate vs. severe disease) and ventilation mode (spontaneous breathing vs. noninvasive and invasive ventilation). Lastly, all studies are observational studies, in which different echocardiographic parameters have been measured according to different local protocols.