ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION: Psoriasis affects children with a considerable burden in early life. Treating pediatric psoriasis is challenging also because of the lack of updated specific guidelines. With the recent approval of several biologics for pediatric psoriasis and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the management of young psoriatic patients is facing major changes. A revision of treatment recommendations is therefore needed. METHODS: In September 2021, a board of six Italian dermatologists convened to update treatment recommendations. The board issued evidence- and consensus-based statements covering relevant areas of pediatric psoriasis, namely: assessment of psoriasis severity, management of children with psoriasis, and treatment of pediatric psoriasis. To reach consensus, the statements were submitted to a panel of 24 experts in a Delphi process performed entirely via videoconference. A treatment algorithm was produced. RESULTS: There was full consensus that psoriasis severity is determined by the extension/severity of skin lesions, site of lesions, and impact on patient quality of life. Agreement was reached on the need for a multidisciplinary approach to pediatric psoriasis and the importance of patient/parents education. The relevance of vaccinations, including COVID-19 vaccination, for psoriatic children was acknowledged by all participants. Management issues that initially failed to reach consensus included the screening for psoriasis comorbidities and early treatment with biologics to prevent them and the use of telemedicine to facilitate patient follow-up. There was full consensus that topical corticosteroids are the first choice for the treatment of mild pediatric psoriasis, while phototherapy and systemic therapy are used in children with moderate-severe psoriasis. According to the proposed treatment algorithm, biologics are the first line of systemic therapy. CONCLUSIONS: Targeted systemic therapies are changing the treatment of moderate-severe pediatric psoriasis, while topical corticosteroids continue to be the first choice for mild disease. Children-centered research is needed to further improve the treatment of pediatric psoriasis.
ABSTRACT
Introduction It has been almost 2 years since the first reports on cutaneous manifestations of COVID‐19. Those reported in children are different and include macular, papular, lichenoid, vesicular, urticarial, and vascular morphologies, among others. The prognosis of isolated cutaneous involvement in COVID‐19 in children is usually self‐limiting but the extreme variety of clinical presentations complicates the clinical approach. Methods Numerous reviews have been systematically drafted and edited giving the clinicians a future direction for skin presentations during pandemics. Results and Discussion Hereby we report the rare and common manifestations of COVID‐19 in children and question the recurrence phenomena and age‐related distribution of the eruptions. Age distribution of SARS‐Cov‐2 positive or suspected paediatric patients (0−18 years) observed in our centre during the first pandemic spread categorized by cutaneous manifestations. In the lower part of the figure, boxes correspond to the highest frequency rate of patients with the clinical characteristics mentioned. Lateral strings include all the sample spans. CLLs, chilblain‐like lesions (COVID toes);EM‐like, erythema multiforme‐like;MIS‐C, multisystem inflammatory syndrome;PLEVA‐like, papular‐purpuric dermatitis of childhood.
ABSTRACT
We observed ten children with a papular eruption with purpuric features during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Northern Italy (May-December 2020). Histological examination showed signs of SARS-CoV-2-related dermatosis. Evidence of nucleocapsid viral proteins using SARS-CoV-2 (2019-nCoV) nucleocapsid antibody revealed cuticular staining of the deep portion of the eccrine glands in all cases.