A Mini Review on Current Clinical and Research Findings for Children Suffering from COVID-19

Xiao Li; Kun Qian; Ling-ling Xie; Xiu-juan Li; Min Cheng; Li Jiang; Bjoern W. Schuller

In conclusion, the numbers of children with COVID-19 pneumonia infection are small, and most of them come from family aggregation. Symptoms are mainly mild or even asymptomatic which allow children to be a risk factor for transmission. Thus, strict epidemiological history screening is needed for early diagnosis and segregation. This holds especially for infants, who are more susceptible to infection than other age groups in pediatric age, but have most likely subtle and unspecific symptoms. They need to be paid more attention to. CT examination is a necessity for screening the suspected cases, because the majority of the young COVID-19 infected are classified as mild infection, and plain chest X-ray mostly gives not sufficient insight into the lesions or lung details. Therefore, early chest CT examination combined with pathogenic recognition is a recommended clinical diagnosis scheme in children. The risk factors which may suggest severe or critical progress for children are: Fast respiratory rate and/or; lethargy and drowsiness mental state and/or; lactate progressively increasing and/or; imaging showed bi-or multi-lobed infiltration, pleural effusion, or rapidly expending of lesions in a short period of time and/or; less than 3 months old or those who underly diseases. For those critical pediatric patients with positive SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis, polypnea may be the most common symptom. For treatment, the elevated PCT seen in children in contrast to adults suggests that the underlying coinfection/secondary infection may be more common in pediatric patients and appropriate antibacterial treatment should be considered. Once cytokine storm is found in these patients, anti-autoimmune or bloodpurifying therapy should be given in time. Finally, it is of crucial importance to assure early isolation combined with best possible psychological support for the young patients.