Evaluation of the Clinical and Laboratory Findings of Asthmatic Children with SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Abstract

<b><i>Introduction:</i></b> There are a limited number of studies about the clinical findings of coronavirus infection in pediatric patients with asthma. We aimed to evaluate the clinical and laboratory characteristics of pediatric patients with asthma and healthy children without chronic disease who infected with SARS-CoV-2. <b><i>Methods:</i></b> This is a retrospective, case-control study comparing the asthma diagnosed and healthy children who were diagnosed as COVID-19 in our hospital between March 11 and November 10, 2020. <b><i>Results:</i></b> During the study period, 6,205 children were diagnosed with CO­VID-19 in our hospital. Only 54 (0.87%) patients had a diagnosis of asthma. The mean of the age was 10.5 years and 53.7% (<i>n</i>:29) of the patients with asthma were male. Cough, shortness of breath, emesis, and diarrhea were found to be significantly higher in asthma group than in the control group (respectively <i>p</i> = 0.002, 0.000, 0.002, 0.019, 0.015). Patients who were given SABA was significantly higher in asthma diagnosed patients (<i>p</i> = 0.000). Hospitalization was significantly higher in asthma group (<i>p</i> = 0.025), and the duration of hospitalization was significantly higher in control group (<i>p</i> = 0.034). There was no significant difference between the 2 groups in terms of requiring oxygen treatment and in laboratory findings between groups. <b><i>Conclusion:</i></b> This study revealed that pediatric patients diagnosed with asthma were in a mild clinic. According to these findings, asthma may not affect the course of the COVID-19 in children.