Six clinical phenotypes with prognostic implications were identified by unsupervised machine learning in children and adolescents with SARS-CoV-2 infection: results from a German nationwide registry

Research output: Contribution to journalResearch articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Yanyan Shi - , Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Author)
  • Ralf Strobl - , Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Author)
  • Reinhard Berner - , Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Jakob Armann - , Department of Paediatrics, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden (Author)
  • Simone Scheithauer - , University of Göttingen (Author)
  • Eva Grill - , Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Author)

Abstract

Objective: Phenotypes are important for patient classification, disease prognostication, and treatment customization. We aimed to identify distinct clinical phenotypes of children and adolescents hospitalized with SARS-CoV-2 infection, and to evaluate their prognostic differences. Methods: The German Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases (DGPI) registry is a nationwide, prospective registry for children and adolescents hospitalized with a SARS-CoV-2 infection in Germany. We applied hierarchical clustering for phenotype identification with variables including sex, SARS-CoV-2-related symptoms on admission, pre-existing comorbidities, clinically relevant coinfection, and SARS-CoV-2 risk factors. Outcomes of this study were: discharge status and ICU admission. Discharge status was categorized as: full recovery, residual symptoms, and unfavorable prognosis (including consequential damage that has already been identified as potentially irreversible at the time of discharge and SARS-CoV-2-related death). After acquiring the phenotypes, we evaluated their correlation with discharge status by multinomial logistic regression model, and correlation with ICU admission by binary logistic regression model. We conducted an analogous subgroup analysis for those aged < 1 year (infants) and those aged ⩾ 1 year (non-infants). Results: The DGPI registry enrolled 6983 patients, through which we identified six distinct phenotypes for children and adolescents with SARS-CoV-2 which can be characterized by their symptom pattern: phenotype A had a range of symptoms, while predominant symptoms of patients with other phenotypes were gastrointestinal (95.9%, B), asymptomatic (95.9%, C), lower respiratory tract (49.8%, D), lower respiratory tract and ear, nose and throat (86.2% and 41.7%, E), and neurological (99.2%, F). Regarding discharge status, patients with D and E phenotype had the highest odds of having residual symptoms (OR: 1.33 [1.11, 1.59] and 1.91 [1.65, 2.21], respectively) and patients with phenotype D were significantly more likely (OR: 4.00 [1.95, 8.19]) to have an unfavorable prognosis. Regarding ICU, patients with phenotype D had higher possibility of ICU admission than staying in normal ward (OR: 4.26 [3.06, 5.98]), compared to patients with phenotype A. The outcomes observed in the infants and non-infants closely resembled those of the entire registered population, except infants did not exhibit typical neurological/neuromuscular phenotypes. Conclusions: Phenotypes enable pediatric patient stratification by risk and thus assist in personalized patient care. Our findings in SARS-CoV-2-infected population might also be transferable to other infectious diseases.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Article number392
JournalRespiratory research
Volume25
Issue number1
Publication statusPublished - Dec 2024
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 39478555

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Clinical phenotype, Clustering, Machine learning, Prognosis, SARS-CoV-2