- Diarrhea, vomiting, and nausea are symptoms identified in 11,4 % of patients.1
- A study done in China demonstrated that patients with GI symptoms had a more severe case based on symptoms, radiologic aspect and laboratory results.1
- Another study, done in Zhuhai (China), demonstrated that the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in feces does not necessarily correlate with more severe GI symptoms.2
- A pooled analysis done by Italian researches demonstrated abdominal pain was found to be associated with four times increased odds of severe COVID-19. Thereby, the authors suggest that abdominal ache may be a sign of severity due to an increase of viral replication in the gut and may be used as a clinical predictor of a more severe case.3
- Some patients with GI symptoms (32.6%) developed hepatic function impairment during hospitalization with elevated bilirubin and transaminases.2
- The ratio cases with GI symptoms was higher in patients with chronic liver disease and other liver diseases.1
- Antibiotic treatment was associated with diarrhea as well as elevated bilirubin levels during hospitalization. However, antiviral treatment did not exert such effects. Thereby, GI symptoms in COVID-19 patients might be due to antibiotics.2
- Higher family clustering was also identified in patients with GI symptoms.1
This data comes from multiple sources:
- This article was done at Zhejiang University, China. The data were collected from 17 January 2020 to 8 February 2020. Xi Jin and al. collected data of 651 patients which had 74 patients (11.4%) that presented with at least one GI symptom (Diarrhea, vomiting, or/and nausea). The article studied non-classical symptoms such as GI symptoms expressed by patients who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2.
- This is a single-center study reviewed data from 95 COVID-19 positive patients. from 17 January to 15 February 2020, at the Fifth Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University in Zhuhai, China.
- This editorial was done by an Italian COVID-19 research team. They searched on Medline and the Chinese National China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) using keywords such as nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. They then performed a pooled analysis to draw a conclusion.
Source:
- Jin, X., Lian, J.-S., Hu, J.-H., Gao, J., Zheng, L., Zhang, Y.-M. and al. (2020). Epidemiological, clinical and virological characteristics of 74 cases of coronavirus-infected disease 2019 (COVID-19) with gastrointestinal symptoms. Gut. DOI: 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-320926
- Lin, L., Jiang, X., Zhang, Z., Huang, S., Zhang, Z., Fang, Z., … Shan, H. (2020). Gastrointestinal symptoms of 95 cases with SARS-CoV-2 infection. Gut, 69(6), 997–1001. DOI: 10.1136/gutjnl-2020-321013
- Henry, B. M., Oliveira, M. H. S. D., Benoit, J., & Lippi, G. (2020). Gastrointestinal symptoms associated with severity of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): a pooled analysis. Internal and Emergency Medicine. DOI: 10.1007/s11739-020-02329-9