1.Gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID-19: An updated systematic review
Alzahrani, O.R. ; Alanazi, A.D. ; Hawsawi, Y.M. ; Alatwi, H.E. ; Alharbi, A.A.
Tropical Biomedicine 2022;39(No.3):428-433
Lack of knowledge about the type and prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms as a clinical manifestation
is one of the reasons for delayed diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 patients. This review study aimed
to systematically review the type and prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
To study the gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID-19, we used the 06- PRISMA registered in the
CAMARADES-NC3Rs Preclinical Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis Facility (SyRF) database. PubMed,
Embase, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases were searched for publications on the
gastrointestinal manifestations of COVID-19 with no publication time frame. Articles were found using
the following terms and search strategy: [“COVID-19, Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, Clinical SymptomsGastrointestinal or gastric or intestinal manifestations”]. Out of 27652 papers, 35 papers on a total of
6730 COVID-19 patients up to 2022 met the inclusion criteria. Remarkably, most articles (28 papers,
77.8%) were from China (77.8%). The most common gastrointestinal manifestations were nausea or
vomiting (13.1%), diarrhea (11.05%), anorexia (8.7%), and abdominal pain (2.4%), respectively. The
findings of the present review revealed that contrary to what was initially assumed in the COVID-19
outbreak, this infection does not manifest only as respiratory symptoms but also as gastrointestinal
symptoms. Therefore, clinicians and gastroenterologists must be alert to these unusual cases and
fecal–oral transmission during the COVID-19 pandemic and implement preventive strategies.