Jennifer Frontera, MD: Reaction to COVID-19 Data

“We do certainly need to understand more about what’s going on with kids who have COVID-19—there are probably certain pediatric populations that are more susceptible or prone to having poorer outcomes than the general population.”

In early April, 1 of the first multi-case studies of neurologic manifestations of COVID-19 demonstrated complex central nervous system (CNS) involvement, thus raising further questions about its pathological mechanism. The retrospective case series, published in JAMA Neurology, found that neurologic symptoms including central and peripheral nervous system and skeletal muscular manifestations were commonly reported in patients with COVID-19.

Jennifer Frontera, MD, professor of neurology, NYU Langone, told NeurologyLive that although the data is promising, there are limitations and much of it is on still broad spectrum at the moment. The data itself does not differentiate between different strains of the virus nor does it detail the overlap from common neurologic symptoms to those caused by the virus.

Frontera discussed her thoughts on the data she has looked at, as well as her recommendations for how the data could be narrowed down to find more conclusive results.