THURSDAY, July 15, 2021 (HealthDay News) – Here’s some comforting news for parents: Most heart problems in children with a rare inflammatory disease caused by COVID-19 infection resolve within a few months, so a new study.
Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) causes inflammation throughout the body, and many patients develop a variety of non-respiratory symptoms such as abdominal pain, rashes, heart abnormalities and, in some cases, extremely low blood pressure.
The study included 45 children, mean age 9, with MIS-C who were treated at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in New York City. When they were first admitted, the children were seriously ill and needed intensive care.
Almost 80% had some type of heart problem, and nearly half had moderate to severe heart abnormalities, including decreased heart pumping, coronary artery dilatation, and leaky heart valves.
Two-thirds of the children had a transient decrease in white blood cell counts, the majority had increases in markers of inflammation, and more than half had elevated markers of heart damage.
The children were given steroids to reduce inflammation, and most were given intravenous immunoglobulin and immunomodulators to normalize the immune system. A third received respiratory support even though no external life support was required. More than half received treatment to raise and maintain blood pressure.
“These children were quite ill, but in our hospital, where we routinely used steroids and other treatments for MIS-C, most of the patients reacted quickly and were discharged after about five days,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Kanwal Farooqi. She is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Pediatric Cardiologist at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital.
“It was both challenging and scary because we didn’t know how these patients would fare over the long term, particularly with regard to cardiac and immunologic abnormalities, which were the top issues at the time,” Farooqi said in a university press release.
The researchers found that immunologic abnormalities and markers of heart injury returned to normal within a few weeks after the children left the hospital, and most heart abnormalities, including any coronary artery abnormalities, resolved by four months.
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