Peculiarities of the course of coronavirus disease COVID-19 in children of various ages in certain regions of Ukraine

Abstract

The research aimed to conduct a generalized analysis of clinical information of diagnosis and treatment of coronavirus disease COVID-19 in children of different ages. The study involved 699 pediatric patients with coronavirus disease COVID-19 divided into four clinical groups – 67 infants under 2 months of age (group I), 320 children at the age from 60 days to 6 years (group II), 127 children of junior and middle school age (group III) and 155 patients at the age over 12 (group IV). A complex examination of patients included the study of the clinical, laboratory and instrumental markers, as well as analysis of the extent and duration of therapy. It was found, that coronavirus infection COVID-19 was characterized in children of different ages by lesions of the upper respiratory tract (70.1%), lower respiratory tract (54.7%), gastrointestinal symptoms (9.2%), neurological changes (17.8%). Affliction of the lung parenchyma with an appropriate clinical-radiological manifestation as a sign of COVID-19 was determined with occurrence from 23.9% to 25.9% of children with a reliable increase of chances to develop pneumonia (OR=7.5) at the juvenile age. The most frequent changes in additional methods were leukocytosis (18.8% of cases), thrombocytosis (14.5% of people), leukopenia (11.1% of people) and increase of C-reactive protein in 43.7% of children. Elevated content of platelets was mainly found in group I (38.3% of cases), and it increases significantly during the period of inpatient treatment, which coincides with the tendencies to increasing occurrence of C-reactive protein content in this age cohort (OR=5.0).