GlobalData: NEJM study further confirms link between heart disease and death from COVID-19

GlobalDataJun 26 2020

Following the recent publication of a study in the New England Journal of Medicine that further confirms the elevated risk of in-hospital death amongst COVID-19 patients with concomitant cardiovascular disease;

Ashley Young, Medical Device Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers her view on the news:

Previous studies have shown associations between COVID-19 and underlying cardiovascular disease. The recent study published by Mehra, M.R. et al. in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms these findings, providing new evidence that cardiovascular diseases (including heart failure, arrhythmia, and coronary artery disease) are independent risk factors for in-hospital death in those hospitalized with COVID-19 infection.

The impact of this news on the cardiovascular device market is multifactorial. On the one hand, knowing the elevated risk of death posed to patients with cardiovascular disease may cause healthcare systems to prioritize their treatment, allowing for their early treatment. This may increase the use of cardiovascular devices, especially those used to treat heart failure, coronary artery disease and arrhythmias, as physicians attempt to control the underlying cardiovascular disease in COVID-19 patients. Specifically, this could affect markets such as coronary stents, electrophysiology products, and mechanical circulatory support devices.

On the other hand, an increased death rate amongst patients with cardiovascular disease who contract COVID-19 may substantially reduce the potential patient population that would normally be treated with these devices. This impact will likely be observed after the pandemic, when treatment patterns return to normalcy.

Overall, GlobalData predicts that the balance between these two opposing impacts will result in a decrease in cardiovascular device markets in general in 2020. During the pandemic, treatment has been focused on COVID-19 support and care, with cardiovascular device usage dwindling. Post-pandemic, device usage will likely not surge to the full capacity required to make up for all the lost procedures, as the mortality rate amongst patients with cardiovascular disease will lead to a reduced patient pool for these devices.”