Nashville Children’s Hospital Seeing Numerous Cases of MIS-C in Children with COVID-19 History

Pediatricians at the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville have detected five cases of multi-inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) since mid-July. The condition is considered to be associated with COVID-19, with 90 percent of children with MIS-C diagnoses also having COVID-19 symptoms or had them in the past. However, researchers are at a loss as to how the correlation develops. In pre-COVID-19 times, only 2 out of 100,000 people under the age of 21 developed MIS-C; however, with the novel coronavirus coming into play, the figure is 322 per 100,000 people under the age of 21. MIS-C symptoms typically emerge between two and four weeks after COVID-19 infection. Some common symptoms are: fever, neck pain, rash, bloodshot eyes, swelling of hands and feet, fatigue, stomach pain, and vomiting. In severe cases, a child might have trouble breathing or suffer from chest pain. ReferencesWhittaker E et al. "Clinical Characteristics of Children with Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in the Context of COVID-19." JAMA Dermatology. 2021;157(2):123-129. DOIRiphagen S et al. "Hyper-inflammatory response in children during COVID-19 pandemic." Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology. 2020;83(4):e261-e263. DOIViner RM et al. "School closure and management of children with MIS-C during the COVID-19 pandemic." British Journal of Dermatology. 2022;186(5):897-903. DOIFeldstein LR et al. "Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in U.S. children." New England Journal of Medicine. 2020;383(4):334-346. DOIRosenblum HG et al. "Understanding the mechanisms of MIS-C." Journal of Investigative Dermatology. 2023;143(1):45-53. DOI