A retrospective study of the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 infection in 26 children

  1. Anjue Tang
  2. Wenhui Xu
  3. Min Shen
  4. Peifen Chen
  5. Guobao Li
  6. Yingxia Liu
  7. Lei Liu

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Abstract

Background

The outbreak of novel coronavirus pneumonia in China began in December 2019. Studies on novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) were less based on pediatric patients. This study aimed to reveal the clinical characteristics of COVID-19 in children.

Method

This study retrospectively analyzed the clinical symptoms, laboratory results, chest CT, and treatment of children with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19(ie, with samples that were positive for 2019 novel coronavirus[2019-nCoV]) who were admitted to Shenzhen Center of National Infectious Disease Clinical Medical Research from January 16 to February 8, 2020.

Result

Nine patients had no obvious clinical symptom. 11 patients developed fever. Other symptoms, including cough(in eleven of seventeen patients), rhinorrhea(in two), diarrhea(in two), vomiting(in two), were also observed. A small minority of patients had lymphocytopenia. Alanine transaminase or transaminase increased in three cases. According to chest CT scan, 11 patients showed unilateral pneumonia, 8 patients had no pulmonary infiltration. No serious complications such as acute respiratory syndrome and acute lung injury occurred in all patients.

Conclusion

The clinical characteristics of 2019-nCoV infection in children were different from adult. The overall condition of children were mild and have a good prognosis.

Mainpoint

COVID-19 is a kind of new infectious disease.The clinical characteristics of 2019-nCoV infection in children may different from adult. Myocardium likely less affected by 2019-nCoV in children.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.03.08.20029710: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIACUC: The study was approved by the instututional of research ehtics committee of the Third People’s Hospital of Shenzhen ([2020-063]).
    Consent: Each patient signed a written informed consent.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variableThere were 9 males (35%) and 17 females (65%), with an average age of 6.9 (0.7) years, ranging from 1 to 13 years (table 1).

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Statistical Analysis: SPSS 22.0 software was used for statistical analysis.
    SPSS
    suggested: (SPSS, RRID:SCR_002865)

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    The sample size of this study was only 26, and it was a retrospective study, so it has certain limitations. On the one hand, the article only included children aged 1-14 years. The characteristics of newborns infected with COVID-19 are not clear, and whether there are differences in the disease characteristics of infants, preschool and school-age children need further research; On the other hand, the changes of T lymphocyte subsets in children need to be tracked and observed during the course of the disease. In summary, COVID-19 children showed asymptomatic or mainly respiratory symptoms such as fever and dry cough, some of them have digestive tract symptoms, and their clinical symptoms are mild. In our study, the clinical types were mild and common, and the probability of severe complications such as myocarditis and ARDS was low, which provided important information for understanding the clinical characteristics of children with COVID-19.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.03.08.20029710v1 on medRxiv