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=28 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 suffering from COVID-19, surveying a 13-months-long period of time. We performed a retrospective clinical trial studying the medical documentation of children treated in seven centers of the Hungarian Pediatric Oncology-Hematology Group. About 10% of children admitted to tertiary hemato-oncological centers 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 but showed seropositivity by 1–4.5 months after positive PCR. One third of the SARS-CoV-2-positive children were hospitalized due to symptomatic COVID-19. Five children required antiviral treatment with remdesivir. One child was referred to the intensive care unit, requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation. Delay in the scheduled anti-cancer treatment did not exceed 2 weeks in the majority (89%) of cases. There was only one patient requiring treatment deferral longer than a month. There was no COVID-19-related death in patients under 18 years of age, and nor was multisystem inflammatory syndrome diagnosed. In conclusion, SARS-CoV-2 infection did not represent an untoward risk factor among children with cancer in Hungary.