Abstract
Objectives: To identify clinical and laboratory characteristics of the Saudi children with confirmed COVID-19.
Methods: Eighty-eight children (0-14 years) with COVID-19 who were admitted to Prince Sultan Military Medical City (PSMMC), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from April to June 2020 were recruited.
Results: Mean age was 5.74 ± 4.7 years with 41 (49.4%) males and 42 (50.6%) females. The length of hospital stay (LOS) ranged from 1 to 17 days. The main source of infection was infected family members. Mean values of C-reactive protein (CRP), serum ferritin, and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) were noticeably above normal. Degree of severity and length of stay was significantly correlated with lymphopenia (r= -0.36; p =0.001), whereas it was positively correlated with absolute neutrophil count and with high inflammatory markers, such as CRP, LDH, and others.
Conclusions: Identifying the clinical and laboratory characteristics of the Saudi children with confirmed COVID-19 will improve understanding of this disease’s presentation and will help put rapid and proper management strategies into place to face this pandemic. A high index of suspicion is needed for cases presenting with multi-system inflammatory disease, which represented 5.7% of the included study population.
Keywords: COVID-19; MIS-c; Multisystem inflammatory disease; Saudi Arabia; children; pediatric.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, pediatric, children, Saudi Arabia, MIS-C, Multisystem inflammatory disease, 【초록키워드】 pandemic, pediatric, severity, neutrophil, inflammatory markers, LDH, C-reactive protein, CRP, lactate dehydrogenase, Saudi Arabia, MIS-C, lymphopenia, management, male, laboratory characteristics, age, disease, Lactate, Inflammatory, Hospital stay, family members, source of infection, LOS, Serum ferritin, study population, city, help, suspicion, absolute neutrophil count, identifying, females, multi-system inflammatory disease, degree, Prince, IMPROVE, identify, significantly, recruited, correlated, presenting, ranged, positively correlated, Sultan, with COVID-19, 【제목키워드】 Asymptomatic, Inflammatory, single-center study,