Background and Objective: Pediatric COVID-19 epidemiology and factors associated with adverse outcomes-mortality, need for invasive mechanical ventilation, and ICU admission, are largely unstudied. We described the clinicodemographic characteristics of Filipino pediatric COVID-19 patients and determined the factors associated with adverse outcomes. Methods: This is a retrospective cohort study of 180 hospitalized SARS-CoV-2-confirmed cases 0-18 years old from April 2020 to August 2021 in a tertiary COVID-19 referral hospital in Manila, National Capital Region. Crude associations were determined using chi-squared or Fisher’s exact tests; and medians were compared using the Mann-Whitney test. Factors predictive of mortality were determined using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. The survivor functions were depicted in graphs. Results: About 41.67% had mild disease, 58.33% were males, 39.4% aged 0-4 years, and 69.44% had at least one comorbidity. About 9.44% died (adjusted 9.2 persons per 1000 patient-days, 95% CI 5.5%-15.2%), 17.78% needed invasive mechanical ventilation, and 20% needed ICU admission. Independently, severe-critical COVID-19 (HRc 11.51, 95% CI 3.23, 41.06), retractions (HRc 10.30, 95% CI 3.27, 32.47), alar flaring (HRc 4.39, 95% CI 1.53, 12.58), cyanosis (HRc 4.39, 95% CI 1.72, 14.11), difficulty of breathing (HRc 7.99, 95% CI 2.25, 28.71), poor suck/appetite (HRc 4.46, 95% CI 1.59, 12.40), ferritin (HRc 1.01, 95% CI 1.00, 1.01), IL-6 (HRc 1.01, 95% CI 1.00, 1.01), aPTT (HRc 1.05, 95% CI 1.01, 1.10), IVIg (HRc 4.00, 95% CI 1.07, 14.92) and corticosteroid (HRc 6.01, 95% CI 2.04, 17.67) were significant hazards for mortality. In adjusted Cox analysis, only retractions (HRa 34.96, 95% CI 3.36, 363.79), seizure (HRa 9.98, 95% CI 1.76, 56.55), and corticosteroids (HRa 8.21, 95% CI 1.12, 60.38) were significantly associated with mortality while alar flaring appeared to be protective (HRa 0.10, 95% CI 0.01, 0.95). Several clinical characteristics were consistently associated with adverse outcomes. Conclusions Majority of hospitalized pediatric COVID-19 patients were very young, males, had mild disease, and had at least one comorbidity. Mortality, invasive mechanical ventilation, and ICU admission were relatively low. Except for alar flaring which appeared to be protective, retractions, seizure, and use of corticosteroids were associated with adverse outcomes.
COVID-19 ; Epidemiology ; Philippines ; Child ; Pediatrics

Objectives: PhilHealth’s present health benefit scheme is largely centered on in-patient services. This inadvertently incentivizes hospital admissions for increased access to benefit coverage. To address this problem, this study proposes a costing method to comprehensively finance outpatient care. The objective of this paper is to estimate an annual primary care benefit package (PCBP) cost based on experience analysis (actual benefit usage) on the first year of implementation at an urban pilot site. Methods: A cost analysis was conducted to assess a disease-agnostic primary care benefit package for an urban outpatient government facility over the first year of implementation. Costing information was gathered through staff interviews, accounting documents, and usage data from the electronic health records system available on-site. Results: The annual primary care cost was defined as the estimated financial coverage for eligible employees and their eligible dependents (n=15,051). The annual utilization rate for consultations was reported at 51%. Of patients who consulted, approximately 38% accessed free available diagnostic procedures and 48% availed of free available medicines. Based on these usage rates, the annual primary care cost for the first year was computed at PhP 403.22 per capita. Conclusion Our study shows that on the first year of coverage in a government run urban outpatient facility, an allocation of PhP 403.22 per capita can allow coverage for a disease-agnostic package (comprehensive); this amount excludes out-of-pocket expenses incurred by the target population of this study. This amount is feasible only when coopted with opportunistic registration, reduction of untargeted check-ups, prior contextual community engagement, and streamlining of patient-transactions through an electronic health record (EHR).
Healthcare Financing ; Costs and Cost Analysis ; Primary Health Care

The clinical data of 67 patients with tsutsugamushi disease diagnosed and treated in Department of General Medicine, Yuxi People′s Hospital of Yunnan Province from January 2020 to December 2022 were retrospectively analyzed. Among them, 43 were males and 24 were females and most of patients were from rural areas ( n=56, 83.58%); there were 14 severe cases and 53 non-severe cases, the age of patients ranged from 41 to 65 years,and the average age of severe cases was older than that of non-severe cases. Most of patients were encountered in July to October ( n=59, 88.1%). All patients presented eschar or ulcer, which were occurred in limbs ( n=27, 40.4%), body folds ( n=22, 32.8%) or trunk ( n=18, 26.8%). The incidence of systemic rash and chills in severe group was higher than that in non-severe group ( P<0.05).The levels of Hb, platelet, ALB, uric acid and TBil in severe cases were lower than those in non-severe cases (all P<0.05), while the levels of CRP, PTC, ALT, AST, Scr, Urea nitrogen, CKMB, LDH, and APTT were higher than those in non-severe cases (all P<0.05). The curative effect of anti-rickettsia therapy in non-severe group was better than that in severe group ( χ 2=5.16, P<0.05). It is suggested that general practitioners should pay attention to tsutsugamushi disease, and early diagnosis and treatment can achieve good therapeutic effect.

Objective:To investigate the prognoses of pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients with leptomeningeal metastases (LM) and explore their influencing factors.Methods:A retrospective analysis was performed. The clinical data, imaging features and treatment plans of pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients with LM admitted to our hospital from January 2010 to June 2021 were collected. Overall survival (OS) was used as the prognostic evaluation criterion and patients were divided into good prognosis group (OS≥6 months) and poor prognosis group (OS<6 months) accordingly. Logistic regression analysis was used to evaluate the influencing factors for prognoses of pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients with LM. These patients were grouped according to different Karnofsky performance status (KPS) scores and different treatment methods, and survival curves were drawn to compare their OS.Results:A total of 173 pulmonary adenocarcinoma patients with LM were enrolled in the study, including 75 with good prognosis and 87 with poor prognosis. There were significant differences in the KPS scores, pulmonary adenocarcinoma lesion controlled status, giving third generation tyrosine kinase inhibitor (TKI) therapy or not, giving systemic chemotherapy and/or whole brain radiotherapy or not between the two groups ( P<0.05). Multivariate Logistic regression analysis showed that KPS scores and pulmonary adenocarcinoma lesion controlled status were independent influencing factors for prognoses ( OR=4.186, 95%CI: 1.583-11.070, P=0.004; OR=4.198, 95%CI: 1.499-11.760, P=0.006). Survival curves showed median OS of 8.2 months for all patients ( 95%CI: 6.5-9.8). The OS in patients with low-risk(KPS scores≥60) was significantly higher than that in patients with high-risk(KPS scores<60), that in patients accepted TKI treatment was significantly higher than that in patients not accepted TKI treatment, and that in patients accepted TKI and systemic chemotherapy was significantly higher than that in patients accepted TKI alone ( P<0.05). Conclusion:Patients with high KPS scores and controlled pulmonary adenocarcinoma can have relatively good prognosis; TKI treatment and combination therapy may prolong OS of these patients.

Objective:To explore the clinical and imaging features and prognoses of myelin oligodendrocyte glycoprotein antibody associated disorders (MOGAD).Methods:Thirty-nine MOGAD patients, admitted to our hospital from January 2018 to April 2021, were chosen in our study. The clinical and imaging data and follow-up results of these patients at acute attack period (first-onset or relapse) were collected and their features were analyzed.Results:In these 39 patients with MOGAD, 20 patients (51.3%) had non-reversing course, and 19 patients (48.7%) had relapsing course. The clinical and imaging data of 55 episodes of these 39 patients were collected. In these 55 episodes, optic neuritis was noted in 27 episodes (49.1%), encephalitis was noted in 10 episodes (18.2%), brainstem encephalitis was noted in 8 episodes (14.5%), meningoencephalitis in 2 episodes (14.5%), myelitis in 3 episodes (5.5%), encephalomyelitis in 1 episode (1.8%), optic neuromyelitis in 1 episode(1.8%), optic neuritis+meningoencephalitis in 2 episodes (3.6%), and optic neuritis+encephalitis in 1 episode (1.8%). The positive rate of antinuclear antibody (ANA) was 11.1% (4/36); the cerebrospinal fluid results of 28 samples were collected from 22 patients, and CSF pleocytosis occurred in 67.9% of the samples with value of 54.89±67.70×10 6/L. Twenty-seven brain MRIs of 19 patients at the acute episode were collected; one completely normal MRI was recorded; among the remaining 26 MRIs, 6 were with one single lesion, 5 were with 2 lesions, and 15 were with 3 or more lesions; in terms of distribution, lesions involving brainstem and its adjacent structures were found in 9 MRIs, lesions involving diencephalon and deep gray matter were found in 7 MRIs, supratentorial white matter lesions were found in 13 MRIs, and cortical lesions were found in 13 MRIs. Meningeal enhancement were found in 4 contrast-enhanced brain MRIs (4/20). Long or short segmental myelitis in the spinal MRIs was noted in spinal lesions, involving cervical spinal cord, thoracic spinal cord and conus, and the "H" sign could be seen in the cross section. All patients received steroids therapy at the acute phase and the doses of steroids were tapered down gradually. Thirty-eight patients (97.4%) had good prognosis after 3 months of treatment. Conclusions:MOGAD is a disease entity widely involving the white matter, gray matter and meninges of the central nervous system with various clinical manifestations such as optic neuritis, encephalitis, brainstem encephalitis, meningoencephalitis and myelitis or a combination of the above. Immunotherapy is effective in most patients, but the recurrence rate is high, and some patients require long-term immunotherapy.