ArticleChildren (Basel, Switzerland)2024
Persisting Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Children with SARS-CoV-2: Temporal Evolution over 18 Months and Possible Role of Lactoferrin.
Article in Children (Basel, Switzerland), 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Management of long COVID-19 in children and adolescents: from diagnosis to therapeutically approaches.Annals of medicine · 2026Review
- Proposed Mechanistic Axis of Infections and mTOR Hyperactivation: A Multidisciplinary Review of Immune, Rheumatologic, and Psychiatric Links.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
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6 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
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Abstract
BACKGROUND AND
aimPersisting gastrointestinal symptoms are reported to be relatively common in children with long COVID; however, their detailed characterization and long-term outcomes have not yet been described.
methodsWe performed a retrospective study aiming to investigate the temporal evolution of gastrointestinal symptoms in children with SARS-CoV-2, from acute infection to 18-months follow-up. To further investigate possible therapeutic strategies, we evaluated the role of lactoferrin in improving gastrointestinal symptoms in these children, compared with those not treated.
resultsA total of 1224 patients (47.7% females) were included. Of these participants, 246 (19.8%) were vaccinated and 143 (11.5%) presented with comorbidities. A total of 175 patients (14.1%) presented gastrointestinal symptoms during acute infection, 54 (4.4%) at three months, 23 (1.9%) at six months, 6 (3.3%) at twelve months, and 2 (2.3%) at eighteen months follow-up. At six months follow-up, children who were treated with 3 months oral lactoferrin had less persisting symptoms compared to those who did not receive lactoferrin, although this difference was not statistically significant (three patients (25%) in the lactoferrin group vs. fourteen patients (33.3%) not treated,
conclusionsGI symptoms are relatively common during acute SARS-CoV-2 infection in children, and a non-negligible proportion of these children reported persisting symptoms for up to 12-18 months after the acute infection. In addition, we found a trend even if statistically nonsignificant toward faster improvement of persisting gastrointestinal symptoms in children with long COVID treated with lactoferrin. Despite the limitations relating to the present study's design, given the significant burden of gastrointestinal symptoms in children with long COVID, our findings provide the basis to perform a prospective, placebo-controlled study.
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