Influence of sex on disease severity in children with multisystem inflammatory syndrome and covid-19 in latin america

Abstract

Data from adult studies show that COVID-19 is more severe in men than women. However, no data are available for the pediatric population. For this reason, we performed this study aiming to understand if sex influenced disease severity and outcomes in a large cohort of Latin-American children with COVID-19 and multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C). We found that a higher percentage of male children developed MIS-C (8.9% vs 5% in females) and died (1.2% and 0.4% in females), although on multivariate adjusted analyses the only statistically significant difference was found in need of hospitalization, with females less frequently admitted compared with boys (25.6% vs 35.4%). This data are preliminary and need further independent studies to better assess the role of sex. © 2021, Il Pensiero Scientifico Editore s.r.l.. All rights reserved.