Ribeiro IB, de Moura DTH, de Moura EGH. Gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with COVID-19: Is there a relationship with mortality and new variations of SARS-CoV-2? World J Gastroenterol 2021; 27(37): 6345-6347 [PMID: 34712037 DOI: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i37.6345]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Igor Braga Ribeiro, MD, Associate Research Scientist, Surgeon, Departamento de Gastroenterologia, Serviço de Endoscopia Gastrointestinal do Hospital das Clínicas HCFMUSP, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Av. Dr Enéas de Carvalho Aguiar, 225, 6o andar, bloco 3, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil. igorbraga1@gmail.com
Research Domain of This Article
Gastroenterology & Hepatology
Article-Type of This Article
Letter to the Editor
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 7, 2021; 27(37): 6345-6347 Published online Oct 7, 2021. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v27.i37.6345
Gastrointestinal symptoms in patients with COVID-19: Is there a relationship with mortality and new variations of SARS-CoV-2?
Igor Braga Ribeiro, Diogo Turiani Hourneaux de Moura, Eduardo Guimarães Hourneaux de Moura
Igor Braga Ribeiro, Diogo Turiani Hourneaux de Moura, Eduardo Guimarães Hourneaux de Moura, Departamento de Gastroenterologia, Serviço de Endoscopia Gastrointestinal do Hospital das Clínicas HCFMUSP, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil
Author contributions: Ribeiro IB conceptualized the study and wrote the manuscript; de Moura DTH and de Moura EGH performed the critical final review of manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is nothing to disclose.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Igor Braga Ribeiro, MD, Associate Research Scientist, Surgeon, Departamento de Gastroenterologia, Serviço de Endoscopia Gastrointestinal do Hospital das Clínicas HCFMUSP, Faculdade de Medicina, Universidade de Sao Paulo, Av. Dr Enéas de Carvalho Aguiar, 225, 6o andar, bloco 3, Sao Paulo 05403-010, Brazil. igorbraga1@gmail.com
Received: June 29, 2021 Peer-review started: June 29, 2021 First decision: July 13, 2021 Revised: July 14, 2021 Accepted: August 25, 2021 Article in press: August 25, 2021 Published online: October 7, 2021
Abstract
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Although, respiratory symptoms are typical the digestive system is also a susceptible target with gastrointestinal symptoms present even in the absence of respiratory symptoms. The gastrointestinal symptoms of COVID-19 include diarrhea, abdominal pain, anorexia, and nausea among other symptoms. Some questions that remain to be answered include: Do patients with gastrointestinal symptoms have a higher mortality? SARS-CoV-2 variants are already a global reality: Do these variants present with a greater prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms? Do patients with these symptoms warrant more intensive care unit care?
Core Tip: With the emergence of new variants of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its clinical manifestations, the following questions have arisen: are gastrointestinal symptoms and complications the same as the other variants or are they different? And are these related to severity of the disease? In this letter to the editor, we discuss the relationship between the new SARS-CoV-2 variants with gastrointestinal manifestations and the severity of disease with the new variants.
