384. SARS-CoV-2 Surveillance Testing Patterns among Hospitalized Pediatric Patients in a Single Academic Medical Center

Abstract

BackgroundChildren infected with SARS-CoV-2 often have mild or no symptoms, making symptom screening an ineffective tool for determining isolation precautions. As an infection control measure, universal pre-procedural and admission SARS-CoV-2 testing for pediatric patients was implemented in April and August 2020, respectively. Limited data exist on the utility screening programs in the pediatric population. MethodsWe performed a retrospective cohort study of pediatric patients (birth to 18 years) admitted to a tertiary care academic medical center from April 2020 to May 2021 that had one or more SARS-CoV-2 point-of-care or polymerase chain reaction tests performed. We describe demographic data, positivity rates and repeat testing trends observed in our cohort.ResultsA total of 2,579 SARS-CoV-2 tests were performed among 1,027 pediatric inpatients. Of these, 51 tests (2%) from 45 patients (4.3%) resulted positive. Community infection rates ranged from 4.5-60 cases/100,000 persons/day during the study period. Hispanic patients comprised 16% of the total children tested, but were disproportionately overrepresented (40%) among those testing positive (Figure1). Of 654 children with repeated tests, 7 (0.1%) converted to positive from a prior negative result. Median days between repeat tests was 12 (IQR 6-45), not necessarily performed during the same hospital stay. Five of these 7 patients had tests repeated < 3 days from a negative result, of which only 2 had no history of recent infection by testing performed at an outside facility. Pre-procedural tests accounted for 35% of repeat testing, of which 0.9% were positive. Repeated tests were most frequently ordered for patients in hematology/oncology (35%) and solid organ transplant/surgical (33%) wards, each with < 3% positive conversion rate. Notably, no hematopoietic stem cell transplant patients tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 during the study period.Pediatric SARS-CoV-2 Testing Distributed by Race/Ethnicity ConclusionThe positivity rate of universal pre-procedural and admission SARS-CoV-2 testing in pediatric patients was low in our inpatient cohort. Tests repeated < 3 days from a negative result were especially low yield, suggesting limited utility of this practice. Diagnostic testing stewardship in certain populations may be useful, especially as community infection rates decline.Disclosures Michael J. Smith, MD, M.S.C.E, Merck (Grant/Research Support)Pfizer (Grant/Research Support) Rebekah W. Moehring, MD, MPH, UpToDate, Inc. (Other Financial or Material Support, Author Royalties)