Children (Basel, Switzerland)
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This is a cross-sectional study of 29 published cases of acute myopericarditis following COVID-19 mRNA vaccination. The most common presentation was chest pain within 1-5 days after the second dose of mRNA COVID-19 vaccination. All patients had an elevated troponin. ⋯ We speculate a possible causal relationship between vaccine administration and myocarditis. The data from our analysis confirms that all myocarditis and pericarditis cases are mild and resolve within a few days to few weeks. The bottom line is that the risk of cardiac complications among children and adults due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection far exceeds the minimal and rare risks of vaccination-related transient myocardial or pericardial inflammation.
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Resilience Against COVID-19: How Italy Faced the Pandemic in Pediatric Orthopedics and Traumatology.
We aimed to investigate the variation of medical and surgical activities in pediatric orthopedics in Italy, during the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, in comparison with data from the previous two years. The differences among the first wave, phase 2 and second wave were also analyzed. ⋯ Our study represents the first nationwide survey quantifying the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric orthopedics and traumatology during the first and second wave.
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Pediatric chronic headache causes significant impairment to those affected and bears the risk of aggravation into adulthood. Intensive interdisciplinary pain treatment (IIPT) was found to positively affect pain-related and emotional outcomes in pediatric patients with chronic pain up to 4 years after treatment. This study was aimed at investigating the effect of IIPT on solely pediatric chronic headache patients. ⋯ The results support the short-term and long-term efficacy of IIPT for pediatric chronic headache patients regarding the pain-related outcome measures by significant reductions from PRE to all follow-up measure points. For anxiety and depression, only short-term improvements were found. Future studies should specifically focus on the identification of methods to consolidate the beneficial short-term effects of IIPT on psychological outcome domains in the long term.
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Neuropathic Pain in Children with Sickle Cell Disease: The Hidden Side of the Vaso-Occlusive Crisis.
The majority of hospitalizations of patients with sickle cell disease (SCD) are related to painful vaso-occlusive crises (VOCs). Although the pain of VOC is classically nociceptive, neuropathic pain (NP) has also been demonstrated in SCD patients. The aim of our study is to specify the prevalence of NP during VOCs in SCD children using a dedicated scale and to measure its characteristics. ⋯ The median age, the sex ratio, the location of the pain, and the morphine consumption were similar for patients with and without NP. Our study shows that neuropathic pain is very common during VOCs in SCD children. The absence of identified risk factors should prompt us to be vigilant regardless of the patient's age, sex, and clinical presentation.
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Poor sleep is commonly reported in pediatric chronic pain. There are signals that intensive interdisciplinary pain treatments (IIPT) may inadvertently improve objective sleep, but this claim cannot be substantiated without baseline sleep data prior to IIPT. This study followed the objective sleep/wake patterns (e.g., duration, quality, timing, consistency) of pediatric patients with severely functionally disabling chronic pain before, during, and after inpatient IIPT (the Functional Independence Restoration Program-"FIRST Program"), alongside a similarly-disabled chronic pain Comparison Group. ⋯ During IIPT, FIRST Patients maintained healthy sleep durations, moved sleep schedules 2 h earlier, and decreased timing and duration variability by >60 min while the Comparison Group maintained similar sleep to baseline. At follow up (1-2 months later), FIRST Patients' sleep schedules shifted later but were still less variable than at baseline. Results point to the malleability of sleep/wake patterns within treatment contexts with strict environmental control but suggest that these gains may be difficult for youth with chronic pain to maintain in the home environment.