Children's Multisystem inflammatory syndrome with myopathy

Mild Encephalitis/Encephalopathy with a Reversible Lesion in The Splenium

Mild encephalitis/encephalopathy with a reversible lesion in the splenium (MERS) is a clinico-radiological syndrome with mild central nervous system symptoms and a reversible lesion in the splenium of the corpus callosum. It is mainly associated with a number of viral and bacterial infections, including Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). In this paper, we report four MERS patients. One had a mumps infection, the second had aseptic meningitis, the third had Marchiafava-Bignami disease, and the fourth had atypical pneumonia associated with COVID-19 infection.

Neuromuscular complications of severe COVID-19 in paediatric patients: medium-term follow-up

Neuromuscular complications in paediatric patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are poorly characterised. However, adult patients with severe COVID-19 reportedly present with frequent neuromuscular complications that mainly include critical illness polyneuropathy (CIP), critical illness myopathy (CIM), and focal neuropathies. We examined the records of all paediatric patients with severe COVID-19 who were mechanically ventilated and experienced neuromuscular complications from our single tertiary centre between March 2020 and August 2021. During this period, 4/36 (11%) patients admitted to the paediatric ICU who were mechanically ventilated experienced neuromuscular complications (one CIM, two focal neuropathies, and one CIP associated with plexopathy). In three of them, the gamma genetic variant of SARS-CoV-2 was identified. At the 4–5 month follow-up, three of our patients exhibited slight clinical improvement. We conclude that paediatric patients with severe COVID-19 may present neuromuscular complications similar to adults (11%), and their medium-term prognosis seems unfavourable.