Clinical Findings and Treatments of 21 Children with COVID‐19: A
Comparison with Their Families
Abstract
Objective: To deepen the understanding of clinical characteristics of
pediatric patients with COVID-19. Methods: Retrospective analysis was
executed among 21 children and their 38 families with
laboratory-conformed novel coronavirus disease in five designated
hospitals. Results: In total of 21 children (10 males and 11 females)
aged from 1 to 17 years, 90.5% were from 18 family clusters and
admitted to designated hospitals 2 days after illness onset, shorter
than the adults. Besides 5 asymptomatic cases, pediatric patients mainly
performed as fever (66.7%), cough (19.0%) and expectoration (14.3%).
Among the 38 adult patients, the major symptoms included fever (63.2%),
cough (63.2%), expectoration (44.7%), fatigue (6.8%), chill (15.8%)
and dizziness (15.8%). Most cases had normal (76.2%, 68.4%) or
decreased (19.0%, 26.3%) leucocytes, nearly half of children showed
decreased neutrophils. 15 children and 32 adults had pulmonary
involvement, consisted of ground-glass opacity (57.1%, 60.5%), spots
(14.3%, 23.7%), stripes (14.3%, 7.9%) and patchy shadow (9.5%,
36.8%). All adults received antiviral therapy: lopinavir/ritonavir
(92.1%), interferon (76.3%), arbidol (71.1%), chloroquine (18.4%)
and ribavirin (10.5%). 16 children used interferon; 12 took
lopinavir/ritonavir; 7 were given arbidol; two received ribavirin. All
patients had been recovered and discharged with duration of admission
4-47 days (median 17 days). Conclusions: Pediatric patients with
COVID-19 presented as milder symptoms and limited lung lesions than
adults. Laboratory abnormalities were atypical in mild patients,
neutropenia may be a potential characteristic of children. Efficiency of
antiviral therapy need to be further investigated.