Functional immune responses after the use of immune-modulatory therapy for PIMS-TS.

covid - 19对儿童的影响与成人对严重呼吸道疾病的影响不同。在儿童中发现了一种归因于covid - 19的新综合征，称为“与SARS-CoV2暂时相关的儿科炎症多系统综合征”（PIMS-TS）。这种情况很罕见，在接触新型冠状病毒2-4周后，每10万名儿童中就有2人患病。它引起多系统炎症，表现为发烧、皮疹、腹痛或心脏或神经系统功能受损，大多数病例的治疗是支持性的。然而，一些儿童需要药物来抑制炎症，包括大剂量类固醇和其他免疫调节疗法。由于这是一种新发现的综合征，目前尚不清楚哪种免疫调节疗法是最好的，也不知道PIMS-TS和这些疗法在儿童康复后的中长期内会对他们的免疫系统产生什么影响。我们的研究结合现有的PIMS-TS患儿随访，提出在PIMS-TS后6周和6个月对患儿免疫系统进行筛查，以探讨疾病的影响和所使用的免疫调节药物。我们希望确定：a)所使用的疾病或药物是否对儿童的功能性免疫系统有持久的影响；B)哪种药物可能更好；C)哪些儿童可能从进一步的监测或干预中受益，以确保他们的免疫系统在未来达到最佳健康状态和抵抗感染的能力。

COVID19 does not affect children in the same way as adults have severe respiratory illness. A new syndrome attributed to COVID19 has been described in children and is called "Paediatric Inflammatory Multisystem Syndrome temporally-associated with SARS-CoV2" (PIMS-TS). It is rare, affecting 2 in 100,000 children 2-4 weeks after being exposed to the new coronavirus. It causes multisystem inflammation presenting with fever, rash, abdominal pain or compromise functioning of the heart or nervous system, and treatment for most cases is supportive. However some children require medications to suppress the inflammation including high-dose steroids and other immune-modulatory therapies. As this is a newly described syndrome it is not known which immune-modulatory therapy is best and what effect PIMS-TS and these therapies will have on the child's immune system in the medium-long term after they recover from the illness.Our study integrates with the existing follow-up of children with PIMS-TS and proposes to screen the child's immune system at 6 weeks and 6 months after PIMS-TS to explore the impact of the illness and the immune-modulatory medicines used. We hope to determine: a) if the illness or medicines used have a lasting affect on the child's functional immune system; b) which medicines might be better; c) which children might benefit from further monitoring or intervention to ensure optimal health of their immune system and ability to fight infections in the future.