Pathologists Fighting COVID-19 - LSU Health New Orleans

A series of autopsies conducted by the team of ASIP member, Dr. Richard Vander Heide, revealed surprising cardiac changes in COVID-19 patients. He recently was an invited speaker for the ASIP COVID-19 Webinar on the topic of Autopsy Insights into the Pathogenesis of COVID-19, where he had proposed the mechanism that the cardiac manifestations in sick COVID-19 patients are likely due to small microthrombi and/or stress on an already diseased heart from the pulmonary stress/diffuse alveolar damage and not due to primary myocarditis. See the transcript here. The team of LSU Health pathologists led by Dr. Vander Heide, an experienced cardiovascular pathologist, identified key pathological changes that shine light on COVID-19 pathogenesis. The team found that unlike the first SARS coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2 was absent in the heart muscle cells. Occluding blood clots in the coronary arteries were also found to be missing.

Autopsies Reveal Surprising Cardiac Changes in Covid-19 Patients
A series of autopsies conducted by LSU Health New Orleans pathologists shows the damage to the hearts of COVID-19 patients is not the expected typical inflammation of the heart muscle associated with myocarditis, but rather a unique pattern of cell death in scattered individual heart muscle cells.

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