Objectives: The main aim of this study was to define the best treatment option for multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) and to analyze the role of anakinra.
Methods: This is a multicentre retrospective cohort study. Patients were treated according to the attending physician's decision. The patients were divided in 4 groups on the basis of the first treatment at time of admittance: i) intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIG), ii) IVIG and methylprednisolone (≤ 2 mg/kg/day), iii) IVIG with high dose methylprednisolone (>2 mg/kg/day) and iv) anakinra with or without IVIG and/or methylprednisolone. Primary outcomes were defined as the presence of at least one of the following features: death, the failure of initial treatment, meaning the need of additional treatment for clinical worsening and cardiac involvement at the end of follow-up.
Results: Two hundred thirty-nine patients were recruited. At univariate analysis, persistent heart involvement at discharge was more frequent in those not receiving anakinra as initial treatment (3/21 vs 66/189; p= 0.047). After comparison of the 4 treatment regimens adjusting for the propensity score, we observed that early treatment with anakinra was associated with a lower probability to develop persistent heart disease at the end of follow-up (OR: 0.6; 95% CI: 0.4-1.0).
Conclusion: We report that early treatment with anakinra is safe and very effective in patients with severe MIS-C. In addition, our study suggests that early treatment with anakinra is the most favorable option for patients with a higher risk to develop a severe disease outcome.
Keywords: MIS-C; SARS-CoV-2; anakinra; cardiac outcome; children.
© The Author(s) 2023. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Society for Rheumatology. All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.