![]() To ease the inflammatory response, doctors treated the children with steroids, and most received intravenous immunoglobulin and immunomodulators. The majority had an increase in inflammatory markers, and more than half also had elevated cardiac-specific markers indicating heart injury. Two-thirds of the children experienced a temporary decrease in the number of white blood cells during their hospital stay. Nearly 80% of the children had some type of cardiac dysfunction, and almost half had moderate to severe cardiac abnormalities, including decreased ability of the heart to pump properly, coronary artery dilation, and leaking heart valves. When first admitted to the hospital, most of the 45 children (median age 9 years old) in the study were critically ill and required intensive care. “It was both challenging and scary, because we didn't know how these patients would do long term, especially in terms of cardiac and immunologic abnormalities, which were the most prominent issues at the time,” says Farooqi, who is also a pediatric cardiologist at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Some of the first MIS-C cases in the United States were seen in spring 2020 by Columbia pediatricians at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. Many children with MIS-C were asymptomatic or had mild COVID symptoms at first but weeks later developed a variety of nonrespiratory symptoms including abdominal pain, skin rashes, heart abnormalities, and, in some cases, vasodilatory shock (extremely low blood pressure). MIS-C is a rare condition triggered by SARS-CoV-2 infection that causes widespread inflammation throughout the body. “It is a relief that this study shows that most of the severe heart and immunologic manifestations we saw in kids with MIS-C resolved rapidly.” Farooqi, MD, assistant professor of pediatrics at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and first author of the study. ![]() Some are asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and a small number of kids who develop MIS-C become critically ill, requiring admission to the ICU,” says Kanwal M. ![]() “We’ve learned that COVID causes a spectrum of illness in children. The study published in Pediatrics about 45 MIS-C patients is the first in North America to report on longitudinal cardiac and immunologic outcomes in children hospitalized with MIS-C.
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