Myocarditis and pericarditis: what about these ailments, caused by COVID vaccines?

One of the side effects associated with , specifically those from Pfizer and Moderna, is the appearance of two heart conditions that have actually occurred in few cases:

• Myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle)

• Pericarditis (inflammation of the membrane that surrounds the heart).

Both are diseases that occur with some frequency in the population, regardless of vaccination, and their course is usually benign.

And it is precisely this last aspect that a study presented at the , the annual congress of the Spanish Society of Cardiology (SEC) refers to.

Specifically, the work of Spanish cardiologists concludes that the vast majority of cases of myocarditis and pericarditis associated with COVID-19 vaccines evolve favorably and without complications.

As indicated by the Dr. Pablo Pastor Pueyofirst signer of the work:

• “Vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 are one of the main tools in the fight against COVID-19 and have shown a good safety profile. However, a small number of people may develop inflammatory heart disease after their administration. The objective of our investigation was to know the clinical presentation and the evolution of the patients that present this complication in our population”.

Cases of inflammatory disease (myocarditis and pericarditis) after administration of the COVID-19 vaccine mostly affect young men and appear especially in the first week after administration of the second dose of a messenger RNA-type vaccine.

These adverse reactions usually occur after the second dose.

More cases after the second dose

The study has included 139 patients from 27 Spanish hospitals diagnosed with acute myocarditis or pericarditis within 30 days after administration of any vaccine against COVID-19.

Well, according to the study it is the second dose of the messenger RNA vaccines against COVID-19, was the one most associated with inflammatory heart disease. In these cases, the symptoms appeared on average four days after the administration of the vaccine.

81% of those affected were men with a median age of 28 years. Of all of them, 81% were admitted for an average of five days.

• “Most of them had mild symptoms and, although 8.6% of the hospitalized patients suffered at least one serious complication during the acute inflammatory phase, none died,” says Dr. Pastor Pueyo.

The treatment that was used with these patients before the appearance of these two pathologies was non-steroidal drugs and colchicine.

81% of the cases were men, almost all of them were mild and none died.

In line with other European countries

Since vaccination began, monitoring its effects has been a constant throughout the world.

At the European level, the latest evaluation carried out by , estimates that the overall frequency of these conditions is very rare, that is, up to 10 cases per 100,000 vaccinated people.

As in the study of Spanish cardiologists, the evaluation of this European committee indicates that:

• The increased risk of myocarditis after vaccination is greater in young men (30 years or less)

• It is recorded, above all, after receiving the second dose of vaccine.

The PRAC conclusions are based on two studies, one French and one Nordic, which agreed on these conclusions.