Research Article: Incidence and Prevalence of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) in Southern Italy †
Abstract:
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) is a pediatric hyperinflammatory syndrome related to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection whose epidemiology is not very well known at present. The objective of the study was to better understand the incidence of MIS-C in the Apulia region in southern Italy. Our primary goal was to estimate the incidence of newly identified cases of MIS-C in children aged 0–18 years, during a period of six months, encompassing the second pandemic wave. We also analyzed the characteristics of our cohort in terms of clinical features, treatment, and outcomes. The cumulative incidence of MIS-C was 3.27 per 100,000 residents between 0 and 18 years of age. In our cohort, gastrointestinal, mucocutaneous, and cardiac involvement were the most common clinical features. With our step-up approach to therapy, no patients required intensive care unit (ICU) admission and no cardiac sequelae after 6 months of onset were found in echocardiograms. Conclusion: Our epidemiological study of MIS-C in southern Italy showed unexpectedly overlapping figures with other US studies.
Introduction:
Incidence of the novel virus called SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly increased around the world since late 2019. In February 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) called the disease resulting from its infection coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1]. Most children and adolescents with COVID-19 experience an asymptomatic or mild disease course [2]. Nonetheless, in late April 2020, soon after the first wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections in Italy, there was an unusual peak in children presenting with a severe systemic…
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