Immune profile of children with post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (Long Covid)

  1. Gabriele Di Sante
  2. Danilo Buonsenso
  3. Cristina De Rose
  4. Piero Valentini
  5. Francesco Ria
  6. Maurizio Sanguinetti
  7. Michela Sali

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Abstract

There is increasing reporting by patients’ organization and researchers of long covid (or post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 - PASC), characterized by symptoms such as fatigue, dyspnea, chest pain, cognitive and sleeping disturbances, arthralgia and decline in quality of life. Immune system dysregulation with a hyperinflammatory state, direct viral toxicity, endothelial damage and microvascular injury have been proposed as pathologenic mechanisms. Recently, cohorts of children with PASC have been reported in Italy, Sweden and Russia. However, immunological studies of children with PASC have never been performed.

In this study, we documented significant immunologic differences between children that completely recovered from acute infection and those with PASC, providing the first objective laboratory sign of the existence of PASC in children.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.07.21256539: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    EthicsIRB: Children that fully recovered or with PASC assessed in a dedicated post-covid outpatient service were invited to perform an immunological assessment which included: The study was approved by the ethic committee of our Institution (ID 3078).
    Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from all participants or legal guardians.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Children with PASC after microbiologically confirmed (with PCR on nasopharyngeal swab) acute COVID-19 were identified using an internationally-developed survey (https://isaric.org/research/covid-19-clinical-research-resources/paediatric-follow-up/).
    PASC
    suggested: (PASC , RRID:SCR_016642)

    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:
    Limitations of our study are the low number of children included and the lack of ex-vivo immunologic studies performed after in-vitro stimulation with SARS-CoV-2, which we plan as a future study.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We found bar graphs of continuous data. We recommend replacing bar graphs with more informative graphics, as many different datasets can lead to the same bar graph. The actual data may suggest different conclusions from the summary statistics. For more information, please see Weissgerber et al (2015).

    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.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    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 10.1101/2021.05.07.21256539v1 on medRxiv