Zeineb A El-Sayed, Rasha H El-Owaidy, Waleed N Harb, Ghada A Shousha
{"title":"COVID-19 in a group of children with asthma: presentation, severity, and outcome.","authors":"Zeineb A El-Sayed, Rasha H El-Owaidy, Waleed N Harb, Ghada A Shousha","doi":"","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>There are insufficient data concerning COVID-19 severity among asthmatic children.</p><p><strong>Aim: </strong>to evaluate the impact of asthma on COVID-19 severity and outcome.</p><p><strong>Patients and methods: </strong>We carried out an observational study that comprised 2 matched groups of children with confirmed/probable COVID-19: 30 with and 32 without asthma aged 6-18 years, who were enrolled consecutively from Children's Hospital, Ain Shams University, Egypt. COVID-19 clinical presentations, laboratory and radiological abnormalities, severity and outcome were compared between the 2 groups. Asthma severity and control were assessed based on GINA 2020.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>The asthmatic COVID-19 children were 9 boys and 21 girls, with median age 9 years, IQR: 8-12 years. The non-asthmatic COVID-19 group included 18 males and 14 females with median age 9.5 years, IQR: 7-12.5 years. Clinical manifestations of COVID-19 were comparable among the 2 groups, except for wheezes which were more frequently encountered as a COVID-19 manifestation among the asthmatics (p=0.001). Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-c) was diagnosed in one asthmatic and 3 non-asthmatic patients. The asthmatic group had higher frequency of serum ferritin, LDH and D-dimer elevations compared to the non-asthmatic peers (<i>p</i> values 0.014, 0.001, and 0.015 respectively). Based on CO-RAD classification, 70% of the asthmatic patients had CO-RAD score of 5 versus 6.3 % among the non-asthmatic group with significant differences between the 2 groups in their CO-RAD scores (P=0.002). COVID-19 severity was comparable among the studied groups (P=0.775), as well as COVID-19 outcome and duration of hospital stay (<i>p</i> values 0.999, and 0.655, respectively).</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>From our limited sample sized study, childhood asthma did not pose a significant impact on COVID-19 severity and outcome. Further longitudinal studies are warranted to validate our conclusion and investigate the relation of COVID-19 severity and outcome to allergen immunotherapy and the use of biologicals for asthma treatment.</p>","PeriodicalId":72163,"journal":{"name":"American journal of clinical and experimental immunology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":1.4000,"publicationDate":"2022-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9845840/pdf/ajcei0011-0092.pdf","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"American journal of clinical and experimental immunology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"IMMUNOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Background: There are insufficient data concerning COVID-19 severity among asthmatic children.
Aim: to evaluate the impact of asthma on COVID-19 severity and outcome.
Patients and methods: We carried out an observational study that comprised 2 matched groups of children with confirmed/probable COVID-19: 30 with and 32 without asthma aged 6-18 years, who were enrolled consecutively from Children's Hospital, Ain Shams University, Egypt. COVID-19 clinical presentations, laboratory and radiological abnormalities, severity and outcome were compared between the 2 groups. Asthma severity and control were assessed based on GINA 2020.
Results: The asthmatic COVID-19 children were 9 boys and 21 girls, with median age 9 years, IQR: 8-12 years. The non-asthmatic COVID-19 group included 18 males and 14 females with median age 9.5 years, IQR: 7-12.5 years. Clinical manifestations of COVID-19 were comparable among the 2 groups, except for wheezes which were more frequently encountered as a COVID-19 manifestation among the asthmatics (p=0.001). Multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-c) was diagnosed in one asthmatic and 3 non-asthmatic patients. The asthmatic group had higher frequency of serum ferritin, LDH and D-dimer elevations compared to the non-asthmatic peers (p values 0.014, 0.001, and 0.015 respectively). Based on CO-RAD classification, 70% of the asthmatic patients had CO-RAD score of 5 versus 6.3 % among the non-asthmatic group with significant differences between the 2 groups in their CO-RAD scores (P=0.002). COVID-19 severity was comparable among the studied groups (P=0.775), as well as COVID-19 outcome and duration of hospital stay (p values 0.999, and 0.655, respectively).
Conclusion: From our limited sample sized study, childhood asthma did not pose a significant impact on COVID-19 severity and outcome. Further longitudinal studies are warranted to validate our conclusion and investigate the relation of COVID-19 severity and outcome to allergen immunotherapy and the use of biologicals for asthma treatment.