Retrospective Cohort Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2022. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 21, 2022; 28(39): 5735-5749
Published online Oct 21, 2022. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v28.i39.5735
Effects of COVID-19 on the liver: The experience of a single center
Valentina Liakina, Ieva Stundiene, Gabriele Milaknyte, Ramune Bytautiene, Rosita Reivytyte, Roma Puronaite, Gintare Urbanoviciute, Edita Kazenaite
Valentina Liakina, Ieva Stundiene, Gabriele Milaknyte, Ramune Bytautiene, Edita Kazenaite, Centre of Hepatology, Gastroenterology and Dietetics, Clinic of Gastroenterology, Nephrourology and Surgery, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius 01513, Lithuania
Valentina Liakina, Department of Chemistry and Bioengineering, Faculty of Fundamental Sciences, VILNIUS TECH, Vilnius 10223, Lithuania
Rosita Reivytyte, Gintare Urbanoviciute, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius 01513, Lithuania
Roma Puronaite, Clinic of Cardiac and Vascular Diseases, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius 01513, Lithuania
Roma Puronaite, Institute of Data Science and Digital Technologies, Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Vilnius University, Vilnius 01513, Lithuania
Edita Kazenaite, Department of Pathology, Forensic Medicine and Pharmacology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, Vilnius 01513, Lithuania
Author contributions: Puronaite R, Milaknyte G, Reivytyte R and Urbanoviciute G performed raw data collection; Liakina V, Stundiene I, Bytautiene R and Kazenaite E revised collected data for relevance and sufficiency; Liakina V, Stundiene I, Milaknyte G and Bytautiene R wrote the manuscript draft; Liakina V edited draft and prepared the final version of the manuscript; Kazenaite E revised manuscript for important intellectual content.
Institutional review board statement: The study was reviewed and approved by the Vilnius Regional Biomedical Research Ethics Committee and by Institutional Review Board (approval No. 2022/2-1411-882).
Informed consent statement: Patients were not required to give informed consent to the study because the analysis used anonymous data that were obtained after each patients agreed to treatment by written consent.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: No additional data are available.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Valentina Liakina, PhD, Senior Research Fellow, Centre of Hepatology, Gastroenterology and Dietetics, Clinic of Gastroenterology, Nephrourology and Surgery, Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Vilnius University, 3 Universiteto Street, Vilnius 01513, Lithuania. valentina.liakina@santa.lt
Received: June 22, 2022
Peer-review started: June 22, 2022
First decision: August 1, 2022
Revised: August 12, 2022
Accepted: September 21, 2022
Article in press: September 21, 2022
Published online: October 21, 2022
Processing time: 117 Days and 23.5 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: In our study, elevated liver enzymes were detected in 88.2% of patients hospitalized with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase were elevated by a factor of less than 3 in 54.9% and 74.8% of cases, respectively. Regardless of underlying diseases, including hepatitis, these patients had higher biochemical indices of inflammation, required an O2 supply, and exhibited bacterial pneumonia complications more often than those with normal liver tests. Male gender, older age, diabetes, and hyperlipidemia were confirmed as independent factors associated with a more severe course of COVID-19. All deceased patients (2.9%) had underlying diseases - most often heart disease, hypertension, and urinary tract infections.