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Research Article: SARS-CoV-2 and Swabs: Disease Severity and the Numbers of Cycles of Gene Amplification, Single Center Experience

Date Published: 2023-05-06

Abstract:
Pediatric COVID-19 determines a mild clinical picture, but few data have been published about the correlation between disease severity and PCR amplification cycles of SARS-CoV-2 from respiratory samples. This correlation is clinically important because it permits the stratification of patients in relation to their risk of developing a serious disease. Therefore, the primary endpoint of this study was to establish whether disease severity at the onset, when evaluated with a LqSOFA score, correlated with the gene amplification of SARS-CoV-2. LqSOFA score, also named the Liverpool quick Sequential Organ Failure Assessment, is a pediatric score that indicates the severity of illness with a range from 0 to 4 that incorporates age-adjusted heart rate, respiratory rate, capillary refill and consciousness level (AVPU). The secondary endpoint was to determine if this score could predict the days of duration for symptoms and positive swabs. Our study included 124 patients aged between 0 and 18 years. The LqSOFA score was negatively correlated with the number of PCR amplification cycles, but this was not significant (Pearson’s index ?0.14, p-value 0.13). Instead, the correlation between the LqSOFA score and the duration of symptoms was positively related and statistically significant (Pearson’s index 0.20, p-value 0.02), such as the correlation between the LqSOFA score and the duration of a positive swab (Pearson’s index 0.40, p-value < 0.01). So, the LqSOFA score upon admission may predict the duration of symptoms and positive swabs; the PCR amplification of SARS-CoV-2 appears not to play a key role at onset in the prediction of disease severity.

Introduction:
Coronavirus disease is caused by Coronavirus 2, which is responsible for a severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS-CoV-2) that has rapidly spread from China to other States of the World since December 2019 [1], determining a global pandemic from March 2020 [2]. This disease caused about 760 million confirmed cases, with about 6.9 million deaths in the world [3]. Data from the literature show that children are commonly less affected than patients of any other age [4,5,6]. Children, in fact, often present a mild…

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