AUTHOR=Müller Judit , Szűcs-Farkas Dóra , Szegedi István , Csóka Monika , Garami Miklós , Tiszlavicz Lilla Györgyi , Hauser Péter , Kriván Gergely , Csanádi Krisztina , Ottóffy Gábor , Nagy Béla , Kiss Csongor , Kovács Gábor 

TITLE=Clinical Course of COVID-19 Disease in Children Treated With Neoplastic Diseases in Hungary

JOURNAL=Pathology and Oncology Research

VOLUME=Volume 28 - 2022

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.por-journal.com/journals/pathology-and-oncology-research/articles/10.3389/pore.2022.1610261

DOI=10.3389/pore.2022.1610261

ISSN=1532-2807

ABSTRACT=We report on children with cancer in Hungary with COVID-19 in surveying a 14-month long period of time. We performed retrospective clinical trial studying the medical documentation of children treated in seven centres of the Hungarian Pediatric Oncology-Hematology Group. About 10% of children admitted to tertiary hemato-oncological centres for anti-neoplastic treatment or diagnosis for de novo malignancies, were positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Nearly two-thirds of the infected patients were asymptomatic or had only mild symptoms with a detectable amount of total SARS-CoV-2 S antibodies. One third of the SARS-CoV-2-positivechildren were hospitalized due to symptomatic COVID-19. Only one child was referred to the intensive care unit, requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation. Five children required antiviral treatment with remdesivir. Half of the children with PCR-proven SARS-CoV-2 infection had no or less than 1-week delay, the other half had a 1-2 weeks long delay in the scheduled anti-cancer treatment. There was only one child who had to postpone treatment for more than a month. There was no lethal case under 18 years of age neither were multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children or pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome cases registered. In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 infection did not represent an untoward risk factor among children with malignancies in Hungary.