Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Apr 7, 2023; 29(13): 2050-2063
Published online Apr 7, 2023. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v29.i13.2050
Occam’s razor or Hickam’s dictum-COVID-19 is not a textbook aetiology of acute pancreatitis: A modified Naranjo Score appraisal
Thomas Zheng Jie Teng, Branden Qi Yu Chua, Puay Khim Lim, Kai Siang Chan, Vishal G Shelat
Thomas Zheng Jie Teng, Branden Qi Yu Chua, Puay Khim Lim, Vishal G Shelat, Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore 308232, Singapore
Thomas Zheng Jie Teng, Branden Qi Yu Chua, Puay Khim Lim, Kai Siang Chan, Vishal G Shelat, Department of General Surgery, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore 308433, Singapore
Vishal G Shelat, Surgical Science Training Centre, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore 308433, Singapore
Author contributions: Teng TZJ, Chua BQY and Lim PK contributed equally to this work; Teng TZJ, Chua BQY and Lim PK performed the literature search, data collection and wrote the manuscript; Chan KS wrote the manuscript and revised the manuscript; Shelat VG conceptualised the study design and idea, and revised the manuscript; All authors have read and approve the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
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: Kai Siang Chan, MBBS, Doctor, Department of General Surgery, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, 11 Jalan Tan Tock Seng, Singapore 308433, Singapore. kchan023@e.ntu.edu.sg
Received: December 8, 2022
Peer-review started: December 8, 2022
First decision: February 15, 2023
Revised: February 21, 2023
Accepted: March 21, 2023
Article in press: March 21, 2023
Published online: April 7, 2023
Processing time: 119 Days and 23.7 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Numerous reports of acute pancreatitis (AP) have been published during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, citing COVID-19 as an aetiology of AP. However, COVID-19 has not been well-established to be a cause of AP. A total of 76 patients were included in our systematic review and were assessed using the modified Naranjo score; there were 32 (42.1%), 39 (51.3%) and 5 (6.6%) patients with doubtful, possible, and probable cause-effect relationship respectively between COVID-19 and AP. The link between COVID-19 and AP is weak based on current literature; COVID-19 should still remain a diagnosis of exclusion for AP until further evidence.