MONDAY, April 15, 2024 (HealthDay News) — More than 22 percent of older hospitalized adults with respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infection experience an acute cardiac event, according to a study published online April 15 in JAMA Internal Medicine.

Rebecca C. Woodruff, Ph.D., M.P.H., from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, and colleagues conducted a cross-sectional study examining surveillance data from the RSV Hospitalization Surveillance Network. To estimate the weighted period prevalence of acute cardiac events, cases of RSV infection in adults aged 50 years and older within 12 states over five RSV seasons were examined.

A total of 6,248 hospitalized adults with laboratory-confirmed RSV infection were included. The researchers found that the weighted estimated prevalence of experiencing a cardiac event was 22.4 percent, with weighted estimated prevalence of 15.8, 7.5, 1.3, 1.1, and 0.6 percent for acute heart failure, acute ischemic heart disease, hypertensive crisis, ventricular tachycardia, and cardiogenic shock, respectively. The risk for experiencing an acute cardiac event was higher for adults with underlying cardiovascular disease (33.0 versus 8.5 percent; adjusted risk ratio [aRR], 3.51). Of the hospitalized adults with RSV infection, 18.6 and 4.9 percent required intensive care unit (ICU) admission and died, respectively; those who experienced an acute cardiac event had higher risks for ICU admission and in-hospital death (aRRs, 1.54 and 1.77, respectively).

“Acute cardiac events contribute substantially to the burden of RSV disease; whether RSV vaccination can prevent these complications is an important question as the impact of these vaccines is evaluated,” the authors write.

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