COVID-related myocarditis: what you need to know

Description

Myocarditis is increasingly diagnosed in the COVID-19 era, but it's at least partly due to increased awareness of the condition and advances in detection milder cases, experts say...

The Royal Australian College of General Practitioners spokesperson, Professor Mark Morgan of Queensland’s Bond University, said a GP’s decision to refer a patient with suspected myocarditis or pericarditis took into account not only clinical factors but also psycho-social ones and the capacity of general practice to manage the situation safely and promptly.

“GPs can conduct and interpret ECGs, request and interpret the results of blood tests and make clinical assessments and try to make sense of undifferentiated symptoms such as chest wall pain, heart pain and combinations of the two,” he said.

“However, the management of a patient may change depending on whether the patient has support available to them at home and can get back to us for regular reviews, or if they are presenting on a Saturday afternoon when a deputising service is about to take over.”

Subject

Myocarditis

COVID-19 vaccination