3.1 Literature search
The flow chart summarizing the literature search of this meta-analysis study is illustrated in Fig. 1. A total of 261 articles were recorded using five major online databases (Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, ScienceDirect, and MedRxiv) till June 30, 2020. After inspection of the retrieved records, a total of 73 articles were removed due to duplication, and 188 records were recognized. Upon screening the title and abstract, our team excluded various articles, including case reports (n = 28), review articles (n = 37), irrelevant reports (n = 42), or editorial items (n = 63). A final of 18 records were appraised for eligibility, with 3 records were excluded for no sufficient data. Eventually, a total of 15 eligible reports were identified for the quantitative assessment of this meta-analysis, with 15 records characterized single-arm analysis.
3.2 Characteristics of the included studies
The main characteristics of the included records in this meta-analysis are demonstrated in Table 1. The articles published online from May 6 until June 30, 2020, included 5 records from France [Paris (5)], 5 records from USA [New York (4), and Pennsylvania (1)], 4 records from UK [London (2), and Birmingham (2)], and one record from Italy [Bergamo (1)]. A total of 318 children with a pediatric inflammatory, multisystem syndrome (Kawasaki-like disease) associated with SARS-COV-2 infection were registered in this meta-analysis. Nine records were retrospective studies, another two were prospective studies, while descriptive case series accounted for four studies.