One in 10 people admitted to hospital with coronavirus develop heart problems during their stay, according to an international research project involving mainly Dutch patients.

In total, 3,011 patients were involved in the research, 95% of whom were in a Dutch hospital. Over 60% of the patients were male and they had an average age of 67. One third had heart or artery disease before being admitted.

The most common heart issue was cardiac arrhythmia, or an irregular or abnormal heartbeat, but 55 patients developed heart failure and 15 had a heart attack. In addition, 200 patients suffered a lung embolism.

Almost 20% of the patients in the study died during their stay in hospital, of which heart problems was the cause of death in 16 cases.

The research, which will be published in a scientific journal this month, does not show which patients have a greater risk of developing heart problems through coronavirus, said Folkert Asselbergs, who is leading the research at Utrecht University.

‘We are currently very busy with the analysis,’ he said. ‘We hope to be able to say more in the near future.’

The research was carried out using information from 74 hospitals in 13 countries which has been collected as part of the Capacity-Covid register.