Gastrointestinal and Hepatic manifestations of COVID-19 in patients attending tertiary care hospital COVID-19

Abstract

Introduction: To evaluate the frequency of Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms and elucidate the association of GI symptoms and hepatic injury markers with the severity of COVID-19 and mortality.
Methodology: Single-centered observational study recruited 160 confirmed COVID-19 positive patients who were admitted in Medical Unit-1/C1 of Civil hospital Karachi, Pakistan from 21 February to 30 April 2021. Data was ana-lyzed using SPSS version 23.0.
Objective: To evaluate the frequency of GI symptoms and elucidate the as-sociation of GI and hepatic abnormalities with the severity of COVID-19 and its mortality.
Results: Among 160 patients, 20% presented with digestive symptoms; ab-dominal pain (33.1%), and nausea (33.1%) being the most common. GI symptoms and liver injury markers notably ALT, AST, and GGT were signifi-cantly associated with severity of disease (p value<0.05), ICU admissions (p value<0.01), and poor outcomes (p value<0.01).
Conclusion: COVID-19 infected patients presenting with GI symptoms and liver dysfunction have a worse prognosis and needs to be addressed on ur-gent basis to avoid complications and reduce mortality.
Key words: Covid-19, Hepatic injury, Gastrointestinal symptoms, Liver dysfunction.