Similar patterns of [18F]-FDG brain PET hypometabolism in paediatric and adult patients with long COVID: a paediatric case series.
Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging
; 49(3): 913-920, 2022 02.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-1366348
ABSTRACT
PURPOSE:
Several weeks after COVID-19 infection, some children report the persistence or recurrence of functional complaints. This clinical presentation has been referred as "long COVID" in the adult population, and an [18F]-FDG brain PET hypometabolic pattern has recently been suggested as a biomarker. Herein, we present a retrospective analysis of 7 paediatric patients with suspected long COVID who were explored by [18F]-FDG brain PET exam. Metabolic brain findings were confronted to those obtained in adult patients with long COVID, in comparison to their respective age-matched control groups.METHODS:
Review of clinical examination and whole-brain voxel-based analysis of [18F]-FDG PET metabolism of the 7 children in comparison to 21 paediatric controls, 35 adult patients with long COVID and 44 healthy adult subjects.RESULTS:
Despite lower initial severity at the acute stage of the infection, paediatric patients demonstrated on average 5 months later a similar brain hypometabolic pattern as that found in adult long COVID patients, involving bilateral medial temporal lobes, brainstem and cerebellum (p-voxel < 0.001, p-cluster < 0.05 FWE-corrected), and also the right olfactory gyrus after small volume correction (p-voxel = 0.010 FWE-corrected), with partial PET recovery in two children at follow-up.CONCLUSION:
These results provide arguments in favour of possible long COVID in children, with a similar functional brain involvement to those found in adults, regardless of age and initial severity.Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
COVID-19
Type of study:
Cohort study
/
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
/
Randomized controlled trials
Topics:
Long Covid
Limits:
Child
/
Humans
Language:
English
Journal:
Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging
Journal subject:
Nuclear Medicine
Year:
2022
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
S00259-021-05528-4
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