Older Age and Vaccination Protect Against Transaminase Elevation in Pediatric SARS-CoV2 (preprint)

Objectives: SARS-CoV2 infection is reported to induce transaminase elevations. There are case reports of severe liver injury in adult SARS-CoV2 patients, and some have theorized that acute SARS-CoV2 infection may be a driver of severe liver injury in children. While pediatric hepatic injury has previously been described, clear shifts in immunogenic response secondary to prior immune exposure and vaccination since initial reports from 2020 warrant further evaluation. We sought to identify the impact of variant shifts and vaccination on this phenomenon in children. Methods: a retrospective cross sectional study of pediatric SARS-CoV2 patients seen at two hospital facilities in an urban neighborhood in New York City between March 2020 and March 2022 was conducted via chart review. Data was extracted relating to patients demographics, clinical presentation, including the level of care and the laboratory results of comprehensive metabolic panels (CMP). Results: 133 pediatric cases were identified as having SARS-CoV2 and CMP obtained in the same visit. Patients were predominantly Black (79.2%) and non-hispanic (87%) with a mean age of 9.2 years. Risk of transaminase elevation was increased in younger patients and patients with higher level of care. BMI was not a risk factor noted for transaminase elevation. Vaccination decreased degree, not incidence, of transaminase elevation but given low rates of vaccination unable to determine significance of protective efficacy. Conclusions: our study has identified a profound increased risk of transaminase elevation in younger patients, the absence of BMI as a correlating factor in our primarily black patient population, a shift towards non-specific AST elevation with variant windows, and a strong signal of vaccine protection.

Epidemiologic Assessment of Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Presentation in NYC During COVID-19 (preprint)

SARS-nCoV2 may have increased capacity to generate autoimmune disease; multiple reports suggest increased risk of Type 1 Diabetes, and case reports suggest other autoimmune linkages. Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) pathogenesis appears to be a mix of genetic susceptibility, microbial populations, and immune triggers such as infections. Given the perceived role of infection in pathogenesis, decreased incidence of all infections during the pandemic secondary to non-pharmaceutical interventions should decrease IBD incidence rates. The aim of this study was to evaluate the association between the Covid-19 pandemic and IBD presentation in NYC using data from new diagnoses at a consortium of institutions. Using EMR systems all diagnoses at 4 collaborating institutions were retrieved from 2015-2021. We fit time series model (ARIMA) to the quarterly number of cases of each disease for January 2016-March 2020 and forecast the subsequent 21 months. We not only did not observe a decline in pediatric IBD secondary to absent viral illness, but noted a statistically significant increase in Crohn's Disease approximately 6 months after the initial 2020 COVID wave in NYC, and trends suggesting increases overall in IBD diagnoses above the existing trend towards increased disease presentation that pre-dated the pandemic. This data suggests that there may be a linkage between SARS-nCoV2 infection rates and subsequent pediatric IBD presentation, warranting further evaluation in the aftermath of the Omicron wave.