Töpfner, Nicole, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Infektiologie e. V. (DGPI), Alberer, Martin et al. · Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde : Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Kinderheilkunde · 2022 · DOI
This guideline provides doctors with expert recommendations for recognizing and treating long COVID in children and teenagers. It includes screening questions and step-by-step evaluation tools to help identify long COVID cases, as well as guidance on how different medical specialists should work together to care for affected young people. The recommendations are based on the best available evidence, though more research is still needed.
This guideline addresses a critical gap in pediatric long COVID care by providing standardized, coordinated clinical recommendations across multiple specialties. For ME/CFS patients and researchers, it recognizes the distinct features of long COVID/ME/CFS in young people and emphasizes the importance of PEM assessment, which is central to ME/CFS diagnosis and management.
This guideline does not establish new efficacy data for specific treatments or diagnostic tests, as it is consensus-based rather than original research. It cannot prove causation or provide epidemiological data about long COVID prevalence or incidence in children. The recommendations are based on limited existing evidence, so some recommendations are expert opinion rather than robust clinical trial data.
About the PEM badge: “PEM required” means post-exertional malaise was an explicit required diagnostic criterion for participant inclusion in this study — not that PEM was studied, observed, or discussed. Studies using criteria that do not require PEM (e.g. Fukuda, Oxford) are tagged “PEM not required”. How the atlas works →
The first block is for the primary paper and is the citation you should use in research work. The atlas-snapshot line only applies if you are specifically referring to this atlas’s reading of the paper on the date shown.
Primary citation
Töpfner, Nicole, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Infektiologie e. V. (DGPI), Alberer, Martin, Ankermann, Tobias, Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Pneumologie e. V. (GPP), Bender, Stephan, et al. (2022). [Recommendation for standardized medical care for children and adolescents with long COVID].. Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde : Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Kinderheilkunde. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00112-021-01408-1
BibTeX
@article{mecfsatlas-tpfner-2022-recommendation-standardized,
author = {Töpfner, Nicole and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Infektiologie e. V. (DGPI) and Alberer, Martin and Ankermann, Tobias and Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Pneumologie e. V. (GPP) and Bender, Stephan and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie, Psychosomatik und Psychotherapie e. V. (DGKJP) and Berner, Reinhard and de Laffolie, Jan and Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Gastroenterologie und Ernährung e. V. (GPGE) and Dingemann, Jens and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinderchirurgie e. V. (DGKCH) and Heinicke, Dirk and Bündnis Kinder- und Jugendreha e. V. (BKJR) and Haas, Johannes Peter and Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendrheumatologie (GKJR) and Hufnagel, Markus and Hummel, Thomas and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie e. V. (DGHNO-KHC) and Huppertz, Hans-Iko and Deutsche Akademie für Kinder- und Jugendmedizin (DAKJ) and Knuf, Markus and Kobbe, Robin and Lücke, Thomas and Gesellschaft für Neuropädiatrie e. V. (GNP) and Riedel, Joachim and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Sozialpädiatrie und Jugendmedizin (DGSPJ) and Rosenecker, Josef and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Rehabilitation und Prävention e. V. (DGpRP) and Wölfle, Joachim and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinderendokrinologie und -diabetologie e. V. (DGKED) and Schneider, Barbara and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Schlafforschung und Schlafmedizin e. V. (DGSM) and Schneider, Dominik and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Kinder- und Jugendmedizin e. V. (DGKJ) and Schriever, Valentin and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Hals-Nasen-Ohren-Heilkunde, Kopf- und Hals-Chirurgie e. V. (DGHNO-KHC) and Schroeder, Anne and Gesellschaft für Neuropsychologie (GNP) and Stojanov, Silvia and Tenenbaum, Tobias and Trapp, Stefan and Berufsverband der Kinder- und Jugendärzte e. V. (BVKJ) and Vilser, Daniel and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Pädiatrische Kardiologie und Angeborene Herzfehler e. V. (DGPK) and Brinkmann, Folke and Behrends, Uta},
title = {[Recommendation for standardized medical care for children and adolescents with long COVID].},
journal = {Monatsschrift Kinderheilkunde : Organ der Deutschen Gesellschaft fur Kinderheilkunde},
year = {2022},
doi = {10.1007/s00112-021-01408-1},
note = {PubMed: 35637934},
url = {https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/tpfner-2022-recommendation-standardized},
}Atlas snapshot reference
ME/CFS Atlas. Generator v1 / Scanner v1.4 / policy v0.1. Accessed 2026-05-26. https://www.mecfsatlas.com/evidence/tpfner-2022-recommendation-standardized
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