Heart function recovery returned within three months in children exposed to COVID-19 who developed related MIS-C, a multisystem inflammatory syndrome, a study published Jan. 19 in the Journal of the American Heart Association found.
Researchers reviewed data on 60 children hospitalized with MIS-C due to COVID-19 exposure at two Philadelphia hospitals between April 2020 and January 2021. None of the children were initially diagnosed with COVID-19 before the onset of MIS-C symptoms. Data on 60 children with normal heart function and no exposure to COVID-19 served as control subjects.
Key findings:
- Heart recovery began within the first week of diagnosis among children who developed COVID-19-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C).
- Children treated for MIS-C had normal heart function within three months after their first symptoms.
- Eighty-one percent of patients lost some contractile function in the left ventricle during the acute phase of illness, but contraction function had returned to normal after three or four months.