Author/Authors :
Soltani, Saber Department of Virology - School of Public Health - Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. , Zakeri, Armin Department of Hematology - Faculty of Medical Sciences - Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Ira , Pakzad, Iraj Department of Microbiology - School of Medicine - Ilam University Medical Sciences, Ilam, Ira , Tabibzadeh, Alireza Department of Virology - School of Medicine - Iran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran , Zakeri, Amir Mohammad Pediatric Surgery Research Center - Research Institute for Children's Health - Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran , Zandi, Milad Department of Virology - School of Public Health - Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. , Akhavan Rezayat, Sara Department of Health Care Management and Economics - School of Public Health - Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran , Jafarzadeh, Mehrzad Endocrine research center - institute of Endocrinology and Metabolism - Iran University of Medical Science, Tehran, Iran , Khalkhali Asl, Parinaz Department of Microbiology - School of Medicine - Golestan University of Medical Sciences, Golestan, Iran , Zebardast, Arghavan Department of Virology - School of Public Health - Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran. , Erfani, Yousef Department of Medical Laboratory Sciences - School of Allied Medical Sciences - Tehran University Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran , Shahbahrami, Ramin Research Center for Clinical Virology - Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran , Pakzad, Reza Department of Epidemiology - Faculty of Health - Ilam University Medical Sciences, Ilam, Iran , Malekifar, Pooneh Department of Epidemiology - School of Public Health - Tehran University Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran
Abstract :
Introduction: Since the start of a pandemic from Wuhan, China in 2019, there is tremendous attention on
the COVID-19 manifestation. One of the most important COVID-19 clinical presentations is gastrointestinal
symptoms. The current systematic review study aims to focus on the implication of the gastrointestinal tract in
patients infected with SARS-CoV-2.
Methods: We searched literature in MEDLINE, Scopus, Web of Science, and Embase to find related article
by using the following keywords COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 infection, Gastrointestinal Tract, digestive
system. The heterogeneity of included studies was quantified with the I2 statistic. A random-effects model was
used to estimate the pooled prevalence and a meta-regression method was utilized to investigate the factors
affecting heterogeneity between studies.
Results: Of 3028 retrieved documents, 111 studies with 21126 COVID-19 cases were included. The prevalence
of any Gastrointestinal symptoms was 17.22% (14.48 to 20.13). The prevalence of diarrhea was 13.75%
(12.07 to 15.44), anorexia 27.41% (21.53 to 33.29) and Nausea/vomiting 8.11% (6.87 to 9.35). Furthermore,
the prevalence of other symptoms in current study was fever 76.70% (73.42 to 79.83), cough 58.07% (54.59
to 61.52) and dyspnea/shortness of breath 24.63% (20.06 to 29.48). According to meta-regression results, age
(p: 0.027) and fever (p<0.001) had significant effect on prevalence of any Gastrointestinal symptoms.
Conclusion: The anorexia, diarrhea, nausea, and vomiting are the most common Gastrointestinal presentations
