Heart returns to normal after rare post-COVID illness in kids, research shows
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In children who develop the rare but life-threatening COVID-19-related multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C), heart function begins to recover within a week after diagnosis and returns to normal within three months, a new study suggests.
With onset about four-to-six weeks after exposure to COVID-19, MIS-C can cause inflammation in the heart, lungs, kidneys and gastrointestinal organs. Roughly four in five cases involve the child’s left ventricle, which pumps blood to the rest of the body. Researchers studied 60 children hospitalized with MIS-C – 70% of whom had evidence of heart muscle injury – and 60 healthy children with normal hearts.
Echocardiography and magnetic resonance imaging showed that all abnormalities in the hospitalized children “recovered quickly within the first week, followed by continued improvement and complete normalization by three months,” researchers reported in the Journal of the American Heart Association. In half of the children, MIS-C-related heart function changes were gone within six days, they said.
The study did not evaluate the course of other after-effects. Still, said Dr. Anirban Banerjee of Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia in a statement, “Recovery among these children was excellent.”
He added that the findings have important implications for managing children with MIS-C. “Our findings may also provide guidance for a gradual return to playing sports after cardiac clearance three to four months later.”
