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. 2022 Mar;26(2):e14156.
doi: 10.1111/petr.14156. Epub 2021 Oct 11.

COVID-19 infection in pediatric solid organ transplant patients

Neha Bansal  1 , Nadia Ovchinsky  2 , Marc Foca  3 , Jacqueline M Lamour  1 , Debora Kogan-Liberman  2 , Daphne T Hsu  1 , Kimberly Beddows  1 , Lincy Abraham  1 , Maura Coburn  4 , Ryan Cunningham  2 , Trang Nguyen  2 , Nicole Hayde  4
Affiliations

COVID-19 infection in pediatric solid organ transplant patients

Neha Bansal et al. Pediatr Transplant. 2022 Mar.

Abstract

Background: Adult SOT recipients with COVID-19 have higher mortality rates when compared to general population. There is paucity of data on outcomes in pediatric SOT recipients.

Methods: This is a cross-sectional study investigating the prevalence of COVID-19 infection and outcomes in pediatric SOT (heart, liver, and kidney) recipients. We extracted demographic and clinical characteristics and COVID-19 testing (PCR or [Ab] test) results from medical records. Clinical characteristics were compared between patients who were positive for COVID-19 (PCR or Ab) and those who did not, using Mann-Whitney, Student's t test, or chi-square test. p value <.05 was statistically significant.

Results: A total of 108 SOT recipients with a median age of 13.1 (8.4, 17.8) years and median 4.2 (2.7, 7.9) years from transplant were checked for COVID-19 via a PCR or Ab test. A positive PCR was confirmed in 10 patients (9.3%), while 12 patients (11.1%) were positive for COVID-19 Ab. The patients who tested positive in our cohort were 9/50 (18%) heart, 6/68 (8.8%) kidney, and 7/50 (14%) liver transplant recipients. There were no differences in the clinical characteristics between patients with and without COVID-19 infection. All patients were either asymptomatic (50%) or had self-limiting symptoms. No changes were made to the immunosuppressive regimen. Only one patient was hospitalized and none had an oxygen requirement.

Conclusions: In our cohort of pediatric SOT recipients, COVID-19 infection was asymptomatic or mild. This data may aid clinicians in counseling patients and families in this increased-risk population.

Keywords: COVID 19; solid organ transplant.

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Conflict of interest statement

None.

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