METHODS
This study was conducted in parallel to the international ECHO-COVID17, a longitudinal observational study involving 14 ICU of tertiary teaching hospitals in eight countries and registered inwww.clinicaltrials.gov (NCT 04414410). In the present study we included patients with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection admitted to the ICU at Policlinico-San Marco University Hospital, Catania, and receiving at least one critical care echocardiography (CCE) exam within the first 3 days of ICU admission or after escalation from non-invasive to invasive respiratory support (whilst already admitted to ICU). We performed transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) with the aid of a portable machine General Electric (GE) Venue Go R2 equipped with TDI software. An ICU physician with certified experience in CCE (FS) conducted all the exams. At the time of conducting the CCE, the operator was not blinded to therapies and patient’s history. Echocardiography calculations and interpretation of the data were performed off-line (FS), with data check by two other authors (LLV, VD). Data were collected in three major domains as suggested by the PRICES appraisal and statement26,27: a) patient characteristics (including co-morbidities), b) clinical data at the time of CCE exam (including hemodynamic and ventilation variables), and c) echocardiography data. Data integrity and quality were examined thoroughly by a methodologist (SH).