Laboratory parameters between multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children and Kawasaki disease (preprint)

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) associated with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been described to partially overlap with Kawasaki disease (KD) with regard to clinical symptoms, but they are unlikely to share the same disease entity. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to characterize the laboratory parameters of MIS-C compared with those of KD and Kawasaki disease shock syndrome (KDSS). Databases were searched for studies on laboratory parameters of MIS-C (hematology, inflammatory markers, cardiac markers and biochemistry) through May 31, 2021. Twelve studies with 3073 participants yielded 969 MIS-C patients. In terms of hematology, MIS-C patients had lower levels of leukocytes, absolute lymphocyte count and platelet count (PLT) than KD patients and had similar absolute neutrophil count (ANC) and hemoglobin (Hb) levels. In terms of inflammatory markers, MIS-C patients had higher levels of C-reactive protein, D-dimer and ferritin than KD patients and had similar levels of procalcitonin and ESR. In terms of cardiac markers, MIS-C patients had higher CPK levels than KD patients. The levels of NT-proBNP, troponin and AST were not significantly different between MIS-C and KD patients. In terms of biochemistry, MIS-C patients had lower levels of albumin, sodium and ALT and higher levels of creatinine than KD patients. In addition, MIS-C patients had lower levels of PLT, Hb and ESR and higher levels of ANC than KDSS patients. Measurement of laboratory parameters might assist clinicians with accurate evaluation of MIS-C and further mechanistic research.

JDSR-GAN: Constructing A Joint and Collaborative Learning Network for Masked Face Super-Resolution (preprint)

With the growing importance of preventing the COVID-19 virus, face images obtained in most video surveillance scenarios are low resolution with mask simultaneously. However, most of the previous face super-resolution solutions can not handle both tasks in one model. In this work, we treat the mask occlusion as image noise and construct a joint and collaborative learning network, called JDSR-GAN, for the masked face super-resolution task. Given a low-quality face image with the mask as input, the role of the generator composed of a denoising module and super-resolution module is to acquire a high-quality high-resolution face image. The discriminator utilizes some carefully designed loss functions to ensure the quality of the recovered face images. Moreover, we incorporate the identity information and attention mechanism into our network for feasible correlated feature expression and informative feature learning. By jointly performing denoising and face super-resolution, the two tasks can complement each other and attain promising performance. Extensive qualitative and quantitative results show the superiority of our proposed JDSR-GAN over some comparable methods which perform the previous two tasks separately.

The Inflammatory Markers of Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in children (MIS-C) and Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Meta-Analysis (preprint)

As per the indicated need in literature, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to characterize inflammatory markers of MIS-C patients with COVID-19, Kawasaki disease (KD), and coronary artery abnormalities. We searched nine databases for studies on inflammatory markers of MIS-C. After quality check, data were pooled using a fixed- or random-effects model. Inflammatory markers included white blood cell count (WBC) or leukocytes, absolute lymphocyte count (ALC), absolute neutrophil count (ANC), platelet count (PLT), C-reactive protein (CRP), procalcitonin (PCT), ferritin, D-dimer, lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), fibrinogen and erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) for comparisons by severity and age. Twenty studies with 2,990 participants yielded 684 MIS-C patients. Compared to non-severe COVID-19 patients, MIS-C patients had lower ALC and higher ANC, CRP and D-dimer levels. Compared to severe COVID-19 patients, MIS-C patients had lower LDH and PLT counts and higher ESR levels. Compared to KD patients, MIS-C patients had lower ALC and PLT, and higher CRP and ferritin levels. Severe MIS-C patients had higher levels of WBC, CRP, D-dimer and ferritin. For MIS-C, younger children had lower CRP and ferritin levels than medium-aged/older children. Measurement of inflammatory markers might assist clinicians in accurate evaluation and diagnosis of MIS-C and the associated disorders.