Pulmonary embolism in pediatric and adolescent patients with COVID-19 infection during the SARS-CoV-2 delta wave

Clay T Cohen; Ruth A Riedl; Srinath T Gowda; Sarah E Sartain; Dalia A Bashir

doi:10.1002/pbc.29721

Pulmonary embolism in pediatric and adolescent patients with COVID-19 infection during the SARS-CoV-2 delta wave

Pediatr Blood Cancer. 2022 Aug;69(8):e29721. doi: 10.1002/pbc.29721. Epub 2022 Apr 19.

Authors

Clay T Cohen¹, Ruth A Riedl², Srinath T Gowda³, Sarah E Sartain¹, Dalia A Bashir⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Hematology/Oncology, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.
² Department of Pediatrics, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.
³ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Pediatric Cardiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.
⁴ Department of Pediatrics, Division of Critical Care Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital, Houston, Texas, USA.

Abstract

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection in children has been associated with thrombosis, though few cases of COVID-associated pulmonary embolism (PE) have been described. We performed a retrospective review of the nine cases of COVID-19-associated PE during the B.1617.2 variant surge at Texas Children's Hospital. The patient cohort largely contained unvaccinated obese adolescents. All patients were critically ill with two requiring catheter-directed thrombolysis in addition to anticoagulation. Eight of the nine patients had COVID pneumonia along with PE. This report stresses the importance of maintaining a high index of suspicion for PE in pediatric COVID-19 infection and vaccinating obese adolescent patients.

Keywords: COVID-19; anticoagulation; pulmonary embolism.

MeSH terms

Adolescent
COVID-19* / complications
Child
Humans
Pediatric Obesity*
Pulmonary Embolism* / etiology
SARS-CoV-2
Thrombosis* / drug therapy
Thrombosis* / etiology