Elevated liver enzymes and bilirubin following SARS-CoV-2 infection in children under 10

Recently, the Centers for Diseases and Control released a nationwide health alert about an increase in hepatitis cases of unknown origin in children, raising concern about potential sequelae of COVID-19 infection. In this study, we test whether there was increased risk of elevated serum liver enzymes and bilirubin following COVID-19 infection in children. We performed a retrospective cohort study on a nation-wide database of patient electronic health records (EHRs) in the US. The study population comprise 796,369 children between the ages of 1-10 years including 245,675 who had contracted COVID-19 during March 11, 2020 - March 11, 2022 and 550,694 who contracted non-COVID other respiratory infection (ORI) during the same timeframe.

Compared to children infected with other respiratory infections, children infected with COVID-19 infection were at significantly increased risk for elevated AST or ALT (hazard ratio or HR: 2.52, 95% confidence interval or CI: 2.03-3.12) and total bilirubin (HR: 3.35, 95% CI: 2.16-5.18). These results suggest acute and long-term hepatic sequelae of COVID-19 in pediatric patients. Further investigation is needed to clarify if post-COVID-19 related hepatic injury described in this study is related to the current increase in pediatric hepatitis cases of unknown origin.