Gastrointestinal tract imaging findings in confirmed COVID-19 patients: a non-comparative observational study

Abstract

Background Corona virus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic—as declared by the World Health Organization—is a major threatening public health problem. At the time of writing, more than 60,000,000 patients and more than 1,500,000 deaths were recorded worldwide. Besides the classical chest symptoms, gastrointestinal tract-related symptoms were noted, like diarrhea, abdominal distention, and hematochezia, adding more difficulties in the diagnosis of the disease. Although there are many publications evaluated, the thoracic imaging signs and complications of COVID-19, there are few articles—to the best of our knowledge—that evaluated the gastrointestinal tract imaging features and complications related to COVID-19. Results In this retrospective study, positive COVID-19 patients who underwent diagnostic computed tomography (CT) for abdominal complaints along a 3-month duration in a large isolation hospital were evaluated. Strict infection control measures were taken during the CT examinations. The data were reviewed on picture archiving and communications systems with clinical data and laboratory result correlation. Thirty patients (30%) showed gastrointestinal (GI) findings, and 70 patients showed unremarkable or non-related GI findings. The 30 patients were classified into four groups: the ischemic group including 10 patients (10/30: 33.33%), the bleeding group included six patients (6/30: 20%), the inflammatory group included nine patients (9/30: 30%), and fluid-filled bowel group included five patients (5/30: 16.6%). Conclusions COVID-19 should be evaluated as a systemic disease with extra pulmonary highlights. GI imaging should be considered for COVID-19 patients with related suspicious symptoms. Ischemic GI complications were the most common GI findings.

Imaging of COVID-19 vasculopathy from head to toe: Egyptian collective experience after 2 years of the pandemic

“…In this study, ischemic small bowel changes were the most common gastrointestinal vascular complication. This matches Abdelmohsen et al [ 18 ].…”

“…This could be explained by the higher incidence of vascular comorbidities among the older age groups and the loss of the protective role of estrogen in post-menopausal females. It was near that estimated by Abdelzaher et al [ 18 ] which was 63 years. On the other hand, both exceeded that estimated by Saleh et al [ 16 ] which was 43 years.…”

“…The former included 70 patients over 14 months till July 2021 and the latter included 135 patients over six months till December 2020. Abdelmohsen et al [ 18 ] studied the vascular and non-vascular gastrointestinal complications of COVID-19. It included 30 patients over three months in 2020.…”

A Systematic Review of Abdominal Imaging Findings in COVID-19 Patients

“…Details of these studies are shown in Table 1 and online supplementary Table 1 (for all online suppl. material, see www.karger.com/doi/10.1159/000518473 ) [ 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 , 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 , 70 , 71 , 72 , 73 , 74 , 75 …”

COVID-19 infection initially presented by interstitial edematous pancreatitis and acute peri-pancreatic collection; the first CT case report in Egypt

“…Several extra-pulmonary manifestations of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) have been described, including the neurologic, cardiac, and abdominal manifestations [ 1 ]. The ischemic bowel changes were the most common abdominal complication accompanying COVID-19 [ 2 ]. Acute pancreatitis is one of the rare complications of COVID-19 infection which was seldom found all over the world outside of China, but not in Egypt.…”