Cardiac T1 and T2 Mapping Showed Myocardial Involvement in Recovered COVID‐19 Patients Initially Considered Devoid of Cardiac Damage

Background Myocardial injury has been found using magnetic resonance imaging in recovered coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) patients unselected or with ongoing cardiac symptoms. Purpose To evaluate for the presence of myocardial involvement in recovered COVID‐19 patients without cardiovascular symptoms and abnormal serologic markers during hospitalization. Study Type Prospective. Population Twenty‐one recovered COVID‐19 patients and 20 healthy controls (HC). Field Strength/Sequence 3.0 T, cine, T2‐weighted imaging, T1 mapping, and T2 mapping. Assessment Cardiac ventricular function includes end‐diastolic volume, end‐systolic volume, stroke volume, cardiac output, left ventricle (LV) mass, and ejection fraction (EF) of LV and right ventricle (RV), and segmental myocardial T1 and T2 values were measured. Statistical Tests Student's t‐test, univariate general linear model test, and chi‐square test were used for analyses between two groups. Ordinary one‐way analyses of variance or Kruskal–Wallis H test were used for analyses between three groups, followed by post‐hoc analyses. Results Fifteen (71.43%) COVID‐19 patients had abnormal magnetic resonance findings, including raised myocardial native T1 (5, 23.81%) and T2 values (10, 47.62%), decreased LVEF (1, 4.76%), and RVEF (2, 9.52%). The segmental myocardial T2 value of COVID‐19 patients (49.20 [46.1, 54.6] msec) was significantly higher than HC (48.3 [45.2, 51.7] msec) (P