the different clinical characteristics of covid-19 patients between pediatric and adults

Background: in december 2019, a novel coronavirus (a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (sars-cov-2)) emerged in wuhan, china. objectives: the current research aimed to evaluate the clinical features of covid-19 infection in pediatric patients and compare them with those of adult patients in sanandaj, iran. methods: retrospectively, 56 hospitalized cases, including 32 adult and 24 pediatric patients with covid-19 from march 7th, 2020, to june 5th, 2020, were enrolled in this study. the clinical and laboratory findings of the pediatric patients with covid-19 infection were analyzed and compared with those of the adult patients. results: the average number of fever days in adults was higher than that of pediatric patients (p = 0.04). cough was more severe in adults than in pediatric patients (p = 0.03). diarrhea was not statistically different between the two groups. dizziness was far more common in adults than pediatric patients (p = 0.01). the percentage of blood oxygen saturation decreased in both groups, but there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. c-reactive protein (crp) was positive in many patients in both groups; however, there was no difference between the pediatric and adult patients. lymphopenia was significantly higher in adults than in pediatric patients (p = 0.02). as in pediatric patients, an increase in liver enzymes was seen in adults. however, there was no statistically significant difference between the two groups. conclusions: the present study showed that pediatric patients with covid-19 infection have milder clinical symptoms than adults. however, according to the laboratory findings, pediatric patients need to be followed up as well as adult patients.