Alkharouby Raghad, Aljehani Noura, Alsubaie Nasser, Alqarni Anas, Hariri Mohammed, Elimam Naglla, AlhajHussein Baraa, AlAzmi Aeshah A
College of Medicine, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Jeddah, SAU.
College of Medicine, University of Bisha, Bisha, SAU.
Cureus. 2023 Sep 28;15(9):e46149. doi: 10.7759/cureus.46149. eCollection 2023 Sep.
Introduction Clinical data about the first and second most prominent waves of SARS-CoV-2 among pediatric cancer patients were inconsistent. This study aims to retrospectively report the clinical characteristics and outcomes of SARS-CoV-2 infection in pediatric oncology patients. Methods This is an observational, retrospective study conducted in a tertiary care oncology center from March 2020 to May 2022. We reviewed the prevalence, severity of symptoms, and duration of positivity in relation to blood count laboratory data and mortality with a follow-up of 30 days post-infection for SARS-CoV-2. Results A total of 396 PCR tests were performed on 342 pediatric cancer patients. The overall rate of SARS-CoV-2 positivity was 43.1% (2.7% in the first wave and 95.4% in the second wave). Among 342 screened pediatric cancer patients, 72 patients had confirmed SARS-CoV-2 positivity in 92 different episodes. Nearly 59% had a mild or moderate infection, with fever and cough as the predominant presentations. The mean duration of positivity was 18.4±7.76 days. Comparing the laboratory values before and after acquiring the COVID-19 infection, only monocytes, hemoglobin, hematocrit, and platelets were statistically significantly affected, with P-values of 0.002, 0.03, 0.02, and 0.01, respectively. More than 18% of patients had grade 3 to 4 neutropenia (absolute neutrophil count=0.39±0.35) before COVID-19 infection and remained neutropenic throughout the disease, regardless of symptom severity. The mean recovery time was 13.67±8 days, which resulted in a delay in cancer treatment delivery of up to four weeks in 42.2% of patients. Conclusion Our data demonstrated that pediatric cancer patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection have a mild to moderate course of COVID-19 disease, with the majority being symptomatic, yet a great portion of our study population experienced treatment interruptions reaching up to four weeks caused by COVID-19.
引言 关于儿童癌症患者中新冠病毒（SARS-CoV-2）最突出的第一波和第二波感染的临床数据并不一致。本研究旨在回顾性报告儿科肿瘤患者中SARS-CoV-2感染的临床特征和结局。方法 这是一项在一家三级医疗肿瘤中心于2020年3月至2022年5月进行的观察性回顾性研究。我们回顾了与血常规实验室数据相关的感染率、症状严重程度、阳性持续时间以及SARS-CoV-2感染后30天的死亡率。结果 对342名儿科癌症患者共进行了396次聚合酶链反应（PCR）检测。SARS-CoV-2阳性的总体率为43.1%（第一波为2.7%，第二波为95.4%）。在342名接受筛查的儿科癌症患者中，72名患者在92次不同发作中确诊为SARS-CoV-2阳性。近59%的患者感染为轻度或中度，主要表现为发热和咳嗽。阳性的平均持续时间为18.4±7.76天。比较感染新冠病毒前后的实验室值，仅单核细胞、血红蛋白、血细胞比容和血小板受到统计学显著影响，P值分别为0.002、0.03、0.02和0.01。超过18%的患者在感染新冠病毒之前有3至4级中性粒细胞减少（绝对中性粒细胞计数=0.39±0.35），并且在整个病程中一直处于中性粒细胞减少状态, 无论症状严重程度如何。平均恢复时间为13.67±8天，42.2%的患者癌症治疗延迟长达四周。结论 我们的数据表明，感染SARS-CoV-2的儿科癌症患者新冠病毒疾病病程为轻度至中度，大多数有症状，但我们研究中的很大一部分人群因新冠病毒导致治疗中断长达四周。
