The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on pediatric rheumatology patients under immunosuppressive therapy: A single-center experience

Abstract

Objective: The aim of the research was to further broaden current knowledge of whether severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) disease 2019 (COVID-19) entails a risk for children with rheumatic diseases regarding immunosuppressive treatment.Methods: Telephone-survey was administered by conducting interviews with the parents. A message containing a link to the actual questionnaire was sent to their phones simultaneously. The medical records of the patients were reviewed for gathering information about demographic data, clinical follow-up, and treatments.Results: Patients who were followed up with immunosuppressive treatment (n=439) were attempted to be contacted between 1 May 2020 and 15 May 2020. The diagnostic distribution of patients who were accessible and eligible for the study was as follows; juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) (n=243, 58.7%), autoinflammatory diseases (n=109, 26.3%), autoimmune connective tissue diseases (n=51, 12.3%) and vasculitis (n=11, 2.7%). In the entire cohort, the mean age was 12 ± 4.7 years, and 54.1% (n=224) of the patients were female. One patient with seronegative polyarticular JIA, previously prescribed methotrexate and receiving leflunomide during pandemic has been identified to be diagnosed with COVID-19. None of the patients, including the patient diagnosed with COVID-19, had any severe symptoms. More than half of the patients with household contacts required hospitalization as they were asymptomatic.Conclusion: Although circumstances such as compliance in social distancing policy, transmission patterns, attitude following contact may influence the results, immunosuppressive treatment does not seem to pose additional risk in terms of COVID-19.