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Author Notes:

Sonia Villapol, Email: svillapol@houstonmethodist.org

A.C., N.C.A., P.R., and R.S. extracted data. S.L.L. performed the statistical analyses, T.W.O. performed the QC of the results. T.W.O., C.P., R.S., P.R., and S.V. performed the literature search, collected the data, wrote the manuscript, and made edits. S.L.L. and S.V. were mainly responsible for interpreting the data and preparing the final version. S.V. created the figures. All authors provided critical feedback and contributed to the final manuscript. Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to S.V.

Figure 2 was created by S.V. using Biorender.com. The authors are indebted to Dr. Gillian Hamilton for editing.

The authors are solely responsible for all content, and funders played no role in study design, data collection and analysis, the decision to publish, or the preparation of the manuscript. S.L.L. is an employee of Novartis Pharmaceutical Company; the statements presented in the paper do not necessarily represent the position of the company. The remaining authors declare no competing interests.

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Research Funding:

This article was funded by Houston Methodist Research Institute (S.V.).

Keywords:

  • Science & Technology
  • Multidisciplinary Sciences
  • Science & Technology - Other Topics
  • IMMUNE-SYSTEM
  • OUTCOMES

Long-COVID in children and adolescents: a systematic review and meta-analyses

Tools:

Journal Title:

SCIENTIFIC REPORTS

Volume:

Volume 12, Number 1

Publisher:

, Pages 9950-9950

Type of Work:

Article | Final Publisher PDF

Abstract:

The objective of this systematic review and meta-analyses is to estimate the prevalence of long-COVID in children and adolescents and to present the full spectrum of symptoms present after acute COVID-19. We have used PubMed and Embase to identify observational studies published before February 10th, 2022 that included a minimum of 30 patients with ages ranging from 0 to 18 years that met the National Institute for Healthcare Excellence (NICE) definition of long-COVID, which consists of both ongoing (4 to 12 weeks) and post-COVID-19 (≥ 12 weeks) symptoms. Random-effects meta-analyses were performed using the MetaXL software to estimate the pooled prevalence with a 95% confidence interval (CI). Heterogeneity was assessed using I2 statistics. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviewers and Meta-analysis (PRISMA) reporting guideline was followed (registration PROSPERO CRD42021275408). The literature search yielded 8373 publications, of which 21 studies met the inclusion criteria, and a total of 80,071 children and adolescents were included. The prevalence of long-COVID was 25.24%, and the most prevalent clinical manifestations were mood symptoms (16.50%), fatigue (9.66%), and sleep disorders (8.42%). Children infected by SARS-CoV-2 had a higher risk of persistent dyspnea, anosmia/ageusia, and/or fever compared to controls. Limitations of the studies analyzed include lack of standardized definitions, recall, selection, misclassification, nonresponse and/or loss of follow-up, and a high level of heterogeneity.

Copyright information:

© The Author(s) 2022

This is an Open Access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/rdf).
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