ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Pediatric Rheumatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1607637
This article is part of the Research TopicMethods In Pediatric Infectious Diseases 2024View all 14 articles
The protective effect of biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies on developing multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C)
Provisionally accepted
- 1Carmel Medical Center, Haifa, Israel
- 2The Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Haifa, Israel
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Background: Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) is a severe, life threatening, complication that arises weeks after acute Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection, often presenting with fever and diverse systemic symptoms. Limited data exists on the effectiveness of biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies in preventing MIS-C development. Therefore, our aim was to investigate whether biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies can prevent the occurrence of MIS-C. Methods: We assessed the Clalit Health Services database, the largest health care organization in Israel, data from 793,909 children aged 0 to 18 years who tested positive for COVID-19 were analyzed. The diagnosis of MIS-C was adjudicated using the case definition used by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) or by the World Health Organization (WHO). Patients receiving biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies were compared to a control group. Results: Among 793,909 cases, 573 children received biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies, and 143 cases of MIS-C were identified. Notably, none of the individuals treated with biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies developed MIS-C. Conclusion: Our study highlights our hypothesis on the efficacy of biological treatments in preventing MIS-C. Although statistical significance was not achieved due to the absence of MIS-C cases in patients receiving biologic and targeted-synthetic therapies, our study shows a possible association between biological therapies and reduced risk of MIS-C following COVID-19 infection in children. Further research, including prospective studies with larger cohorts, is warranted to confirm these findings and elucidate underlying mechanisms.
Keywords: MIS-C, COVID-19, biological treatments, pediatric, Targeted-synthetic therapies
Received: 07 Apr 2025; Accepted: 07 Jul 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Khoury, Miller-Barmak, Shehadeh, Cohen, Hadar and Hamad Saied. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lana Khoury, Carmel Medical Center, Haifa, Israel
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