Identifying Biomarker Signatures of Prognostic Value for Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C)

The purpose of this study was to develop a tool that can diagnose multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C.) Some children and young adults who have had COVID-19 develop this rare disease about a month after they recover. It can be serious, as it causes inflammation in various organs, including the heart, lungs, kidneys, brain, skin, eyes, and intestines. MIS-C has symptoms similar to several diseases, including COVID-19 and Kawasaki disease, making diagnosis difficult. Currently, patients must undergo a battery of tests in order to diagnose MIS-C, including bloodwork, x-rays, and echocardiograms, which can take several days, delay treatment, and subject parents and children to the anxiety that's associated with an undiagnosed, concerning illness. The new diagnostic test used an existing invention, a Grating-Coupled Fluorescence Plasmonic (GCFP) chip. It's a small gold chip that can analyze up to 400 biomarkers at once, whereas common methods are only able to analyze one biomarker at a time. The hope was to identify biomarkers that are only present, or are present in higher or lower numbers, when someone has MIS-C. The ability to include multiple biomarkers on one chip was very powerful, as several biomarkers were likely involved with this disease. The ability to identify these biomarkers would enable doctors to place a drop of a patient's saliva or blood on the chip, and the chip will quickly tell them if they have MIS-C or something else that looks like MIS-C. Participants were recruited at four hospitals in the U.S. and Colombia, collecting their blood, saliva, and health information, and followed them for up to four years. Scientists at five laboratories studied the blood and saliva to identify biomarkers, and also studied the microbiome to better understand why some children develop MIS-C or become seriously ill, and others do not.