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Background. The mechanisms associated with COVID-19 in children are not well understood. We sought to define the differences in nasopharyngeal (NP) cytokine profiles according to clinical presentation in children with COVID-19. Methods. Single-center, prospective study in 137 children and adolescents< 21 years of age hospitalized with COVID-19, and 35 age, sex and race matched pre-pandemic (2016-2019) healthy controls. Children with COVID-19 were categorized according to their clinical presentation in: COVID-19-symptomatic; COVID-19-screening, and multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C). NP swabs were obtained within 24 hours of admission to measure SARS-CoV-2 loads by rt-PCR, and a 92-cytokine panel. Unsupervised and supervised analysis adjusted for multiple comparisons were performed. Results. From 3/2020 to 1/2021, we enrolled 76 COVID-19-symptomatic children (3.5 [0.2-15.75] years); 45 COVID-19-screening (11.1 [4.2-16.1] years), and 16 MIS-C (11.2 [5.9-14.6] years). Median NP SARS-CoV-2 loads were higher in COVID-19-symptomatic versus screening and MIS-C (6.8 vs 3.5 vs 2.82 log10 copies/mL; p< 0.001). Statistical group comparisons identified 15 cytokines that consistently differed between groups and were clustered in three functional categories:(1) antiviral/regulatory,(2) pro-inflammatory/chemotactic, and (3) a combination of (1) and (2);(Fig 1). All 15 cytokines were higher in COVID-19-symptomatic versus controls (p< 0.05). Similarly, and except for TNF, CCL3, CCL4 and CCL23, which were comparable in COVID-19-symptomatic and screening patients, the remaining cytokines were higher in …