In a new study, researchers found that approximately 12% of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection report gut symptoms.
The research was conducted by a team at the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
The team reviewed prior studies to estimate gut symptoms, liver enzyme levels outside reference ranges, and fecal tests positive for SARS-CoV-2 among patients with COVID-19.
The researchers identified 23 published and six preprint studies including 4,805 patients.
Their analysis showed that 7.4% of patients reported diarrhea and 4.6% of patients reported nausea or vomiting.
Twenty percent of patients had aspartate aminotransferase levels outside reference ranges, while 14.6% had alanine aminotransferase levels outside reference ranges.
Eight studies reported fecal tests positive for SARS-CoV-2, with viral RNA shedding detected in feces in 40.5% of patients.
The team observed no strong publication bias but noted a high level of heterogeneity.
These findings suggest that patients with COVID-19 infection can have gut symptoms with the possible fecal-oral route of transmission due to the presence of viral RNA in the stool.
One author of the study is Sravanthi Parasa, M.D. from the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle.
The study is published in JAMA Network Open.
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