Recovery of cardiac function for children with MOV-C associated with COVID

WEDNESDAY, Jan. 19, 2022 (HealthDay News) – A rare and serious inflammatory condition called MIS-C can affect children weeks after they recover from a COVID infection.

But now we have good news for parents: children usually recover completely from anything heart injury within three months of falling ill, a new study from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) shows.

“While it can be quite serious and very, very rarely even fatal, the vast majority of children are recovering,” said Dr. Kevin Friedman, a pediatric cardiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital who was not involved in the study. “Their hearts are recovering. Recovery is pretty normal, over time.”

Early in pandemicDoctors have found that children infected with COVID sometimes fall victim to a delayed side effect called MIS-C (multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children).

Children usually develop MIS-C about four to six weeks after COVID infection. The syndrome causes deep inflammation throughout the body affecting the major organs.

MIS-C occurs in 1 in 3,000 patients with COVID, said Dr. Pei-Ni Jone, a pediatric cardiologist at Colorado Children’s Hospital. Jone is also investigating the effects of MIS-C on the heart, but was not included in the new study.

In more than 4 out of 5 cases of MIS-C, the heart is one of the organs affected by this inflammation, CHOP researchers said in notes.

“The heart is the most affected organ,” MIS-C said, Jone said, noting that reduced heart function can sometimes lead to kidney or liver also injury.

Half of children with MIS-C suffer from reduced function of the left ventricle, the heart chamber that pumps oxygen blood out to the body.

“Symptoms can be any of them up to very low blood pressure and a very sick child who is on intensive intensive care breathing tube and heart medications that support their heart, ”Friedman said.

To see if these children would recover, CHOP doctors compared 60 children hospitalized with MOV-C associated with COVID with a group of 60 healthy children.

ECG readings showed that cardiac function in MIS-C children improved rapidly within the first week. By three months they were essentially back to normal. MRI scans of several children revealed no permanent scars or damage to their hearts.