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GI symptoms as early signs of COVID-19 in hospitalised Italian patients
- Source :
- Gut
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- BMJ, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Objective To study the GI symptoms in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infected patients. Design We analysed epidemiological, demographic, clinical and laboratory data of 95 cases with SARS-CoV-2 caused coronavirus disease 2019. Real-time reverse transcriptase PCR was used to detect the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in faeces and GI tissues. Results Among the 95 patients, 58 cases exhibited GI symptoms of which 11 (11.6%) occurred on admission and 47 (49.5%) developed during hospitalisation. Diarrhoea (24.2%), anorexia (17.9%) and nausea (17.9%) were the main symptoms with five (5.3%), five (5.3%) and three (3.2%) cases occurred on the illness onset, respectively. A substantial proportion of patients developed diarrhoea during hospitalisation, potentially aggravated by various drugs including antibiotics. Faecal samples of 65 hospitalised patients were tested for the presence of SARS-CoV-2, including 42 with and 23 without GI symptoms, of which 22 (52.4%) and 9 (39.1%) were positive, respectively. Six patients with GI symptoms were subjected to endoscopy, revealing oesophageal bleeding with erosions and ulcers in one severe patient. SARS-CoV-2 RNA was detected in oesophagus, stomach, duodenum and rectum specimens for both two severe patients. In contrast, only duodenum was positive in one of the four non-severe patients. Conclusions GI tract may be a potential transmission route and target organ of SARS-CoV-2.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
medicine.medical_specialty
Abdominal pain
Gi symptoms
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Nausea
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
Pneumonia, Viral
gastrointestinal pathology
clinical decision making
Betacoronavirus
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Internal medicine
medicine
Humans
Medical history
Pandemics
SARS-CoV-2
business.industry
abdominal pain
Gastroenterology
COVID-19
gastric diseases
PostScript
diarrhoea
030104 developmental biology
Italy
Radiological weapon
Vomiting
030211 gastroenterology & hepatology
gastrointestinal tract
medicine.symptom
Coronavirus Infections
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 14683288 and 00175749
- Volume :
- 69
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Gut
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....f75769b0552952496edfd59c61c9d7f4