Hyderabad: According to a new research by the American Heart Association, treatment with antibodies purified from donated blood and steroids improved heart function in the majority of children with COVID-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome.
Physicians around the world have recently noted that a small number of children exposed to COVID-19 have an emerging condition with features overlapping toxic shock syndrome and similar to a heart condition known as Kawasaki disease, together with cardiac inflammation. The symptoms most commonly observed are high-spiking fever, unusual lethargy over several days (asthenia), digestive signs including severe abdominal pain, vomiting or diarrhea, swollen lymph nodes (adenopathy) and skin rash.
In this small study, “Acute heart failure in multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) in the context of global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic,” researchers in France and Switzerland retrospectively collected and analyzed clinical, biological, therapeutic and early outcome data for children admitted to the pediatric intensive care unit from March 22 to April 30, 2020, with fever, cardiogenic shock or acute left ventricular dysfunction with inflammatory state.
This analysis included 35 children (ages 2 to 16; median age of 10 years). Thirty-one (88.5%) children tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection, and none of the children had underlying cardiovascular disease.
The majority of patients received intravenous immune globulin treatment, and 12 patients were treated with intravenous steroids. Three children were treated with an interleukin 1 receptor antagonist due to persistent severe inflammatory state. 23 patients were treated with a therapeutic dose of heparin. No deaths were observed.
“The majority of patients recovered within a few days following intravenous immune globulin, with adjunctive steroid therapy used in one third. Treatment with immune globulin appears to be associated with recovery of left ventricular systolic function,” researchers reported.
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