Coincidences? "Children with Covid-19 often exp

Coincidences?

"Children with Covid-19 often experience kidney injuries, doctors report.

Mayson Barillas, 11, who recently recovered from multisystem inflammatory syndrome with his mother, Sandy Barillas.
Mayson Barillas, 11, who recently recovered from multisystem inflammatory syndrome with his mother, Sandy Barillas.Credit...Rosem Morton for The New York Times
One in 10 children hospitalized with Covid-19 at four New York area hospitals last spring and summer developed acute kidney injury, a new study has found. The rate was even higher among children also found to have a serious inflammatory condition associated with Covid-19: almost one in five of them experienced sudden kidney injury.

Children with the inflammatory condition and kidney injury frequently had poor heart function and stayed in the hospital for longer, the researchers found. The study, published in the journal Kidney International, was carried out by investigators at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research, which is part of Northwell Health.

Acute kidney injury, or acute kidney failure, develops rapidly. It occurs when the kidneys stop working properly and cannot filter waste from the blood. The condition is seen most commonly in critically ill patients, and it can be fatal. It is treated with fluids, medications and dialysis.

The researchers reviewed the medical records of 152 children under age 18 with Covid-19 who were admitted to four Northwell Health hospitals from March 9 to Aug. 13. Among them were 55 children who had the inflammatory condition, called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C.

Acute kidney injury is known to be a complication of Covid-19 disease in adults; another Northwell study found that the condition was diagnosed in over one-third of adult patients hospitalized with Covid-19. But less is known about how often kidney injury occurs in children.

Estimates of the incidence in children have varied from as low as 1 percent, in China, to as high as 44 percent, as reported in a preliminary multicenter study at 32 hospitals in the United States.

In the new study, the most common first symptoms for children with acute kidney injury were gastrointestinal, such as diarrhea and vomiting, the report said. The injury resolved in most of the children by the time they were discharged from the hospital.

Black children appeared to be at nearly three times the risk of developing acute kidney injury, researchers said. But the number of children in the study was small, and investigators were not able to tease out the effects of socioeconomic status, pre-existing conditions or other factors.

Pediatricians treating children after a hospitalization for Covid-19 may need to check their blood pressure and urine regularly, the researchers said. An episode of acute kidney injury may increase the chances of kidney disease in the future.

“This informs care down the road,” said Dr. Abby Basalely, the paper’s first author, a pediatric nephrologist who is an investigator at the Feinstein Institutes. “Thinking about whether there were kidney injuries sometimes falls to the wayside, but it may be an important thing to follow up on.”

— Roni Caryn Rabin"

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/03/04/world...ors-report

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10970982/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31700890/