Little is known about the outcomes of neurologic complications associated with COVID-19 in children. We spoke with Dr James Antoon (Department of Paediatrics, Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt, Nashville, TN, USA) to discuss his recent cross-sectional study of 15,137 COVID-19 children aged 2 months to <18 years with COVID-19 discharged from 52 children’s hospitals from March 2020-March 2022. They concluded that neurologic complications are common in children hospitalized with COVID-19 and are associated with worse hospital outcomes. It also highlighted the importance of COVID-19 vaccination in children and high risk populations.
Access part 2 of the interview on vaccine uptake in children
Questions:
- What is known about the neurologic complications of COVID-19 in children?
- What were the aims and design of your study?
- What were the findings in terms of prevalence of neurologic complications and hospital admissions?
- What factors were associated with the risk of neurologic complication, and what are the clinical implications of these findings?
- What were the limitations of the study and what questions remain unanswered?
Resources: J W Antoon, M Hall, L M Howard, A Herndon, K L Freundlich, C G Grijalva, D J Williams. COVID-19 and Acute Neurologic Complications in Children. Pediatrics. 2022. doi.org/10.1542/peds.2022-058167
Disclosures: James Antoon receives grant/research support from NIH/NIAID.
Support: Interview and filming supported by Touch Medical Media. Interview conducted by Katey Gabrysch.
