Female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C) involves medically unnecessary cutting of parts or all of the external female genitalia. It is outlawed in the United States and much of the world but is still known to occur in more than 30 countries. FGM/C most often is performed on children, from infancy to adolescence, and has significant morbidity and mortality. In 2018, an estimated 200 million girls and women alive at that time had undergone FGM/C worldwide. Some estimate that more than 500 000 girls and women in the United States have had or are at risk for having FGM/C. However, pediatric prevalence of FGM/C is only estimated given that most pediatric cases remain undiagnosed both in countries of origin and in the Western world, including in the United States. It is a cultural practice not directly tied to any specific religion, ethnicity, or race and has occurred in the United States. Although it is mostly a pediatric practice, currently there is no standard FGM/C teaching required for health care providers who care for children, including pediatricians, family physicians, child abuse pediatricians, pediatric urologists, and pediatric urogynecologists. This clinical report is the first comprehensive summary of FGM/C in children and includes education regarding a standard-of-care approach for examination of external female genitalia at all health supervision examinations, diagnosis, complications, management, treatment, culturally sensitive discussion and counseling approaches, and legal and ethical considerations.

Immune thrombocytopenia (ITP) is a potential presentation of COVID-19. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) viral testing should be considered in these patients to allow for appropriate hospital triaging and isolation to limit community spread and health care worker infection during epidemics or pandemics. ITP is characterized by isolated thrombocytopenia. Approximately two-thirds of children with primary ITP have a history of a viral infection during the previous month.1,2 Viruses commonly identified as triggers include cytomegalovirus, hepatitis C, herpes, varicella zoster, Epstein-Barr, influenza, and HIV.3–7 In this case report, we describe the first documented case of a pediatric patient with ITP who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. This case raises awareness of ITP as a possible pediatric presentation of coronavirus disease.

The majority of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) display pulmonary disease; however, a significant portion of patients have cardiac injury as well, with a high incidence of myocarditis documented in the adult population. Pediatric disease from COVID-19 has been relatively rare, and no cases of virus-related cardiac disease have been published. We present a case of an adolescent girl with fulminant myocarditis with complete heart block, elevated troponin I levels, and severely depressed systolic function in the setting of COVID-19 infection.

We describe 2 children with persistent fever and profuse diarrhea who developed signs of mucocutaneous involvement (conjunctivitis, fissured lips, skin rash, erythema, and edema of the hands and feet). Blood tests revealed elevated markers of inflammation, lymphopenia, thrombocytopenia, and complement consumption. Afterward, diffuse edema with hypoalbuminemia appeared in the context of a capillary leak syndrome. In both patients, repeated nasal swabs were negative for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but each patient had high titers of immunoglobulin G and immunoglobulin M against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The negative PCR results in the presence of immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G suggested that the inflammatory response developed in the late phase of viral infection, when SARS-CoV-2 was not detectable in the upper airway. In this report, we describe patients with what we propose to name as SARS-CoV-2–induced Kawasaki-like hyperinflammatory syndrome. SARS-CoV-2–induced Kawasaki-like hyperinflammatory syndrome seems to be caused by a delayed response to SARS-CoV-2. It resembles Kawasaki disease complicated by macrophage activation syndrome, although it has peculiar features, such as prodromal diarrhea, capillary leak syndrome, and myocardial dysfunction. Intravenous corticosteroid treatment appears to be helpful.