MIS-C is an inflammatory reaction in the body that can affect multiple organs, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, and brain.
Symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, dizziness or lightheadedness, bloodshot eyes, and skin rash. While rare, it can occur in school-aged children in the weeks following a COVID-19 infection, and have similarities to Kawasaki disease and toxic shock syndrome, making a quick diagnosis challenging. MIS-C can be very serious, but is treatable.
For this study, 54 blood samples were collected. Twenty from healthy children, five from COVID-19 ARDS patients, and 29 from MIS-C patients. Because the healthy control samples were taken from before the pandemic, researchers were certain those samples had no COVID-19 exposure. None of the MIS-C patients had pre-existing conditions, while one COVID-19 ARDS patient had sickle-cell anaemia and another had leukemia.
Scientists used a discovery proteomics technique, which is used to gather information about all the proteins within a sample. The technique means hundreds of proteins circulating in the blood are analyzed. Eighty-five proteins were found that were specific to MIS-C and 52 to COVID-19 ARDS. “Our study provides the basis for future studies with access to larger sample numbers to expand on our research,” the authors wrote in the study.