Manifestations of Digestive system in hospitalized patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia in Wuhan, China: a single-center, descriptive study

Objective To study the manifestations of digestive system of hospitalized patients with novel coronavirus pneumonia (NCP) in Wuhan, China, and to provide reference for disease control and treatment. Methods The data of hospitalized patients with NCP in the Sino-French Branch of Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology was retrospectively analyzed, which included general information, nucleic acid test, severity degree of disease, incubation period, initial symptoms and manifestations of digestive system. The general information, positive rate of nucleic acid detection, and manifestations of digestive system were compared between critical patients who required non-invasive or invasive assisted ventilation (critical group) and non-critical patients without assisted ventilation (non-critical group). Continuous corrected chi-square test and independent sample median test were performed for statistical analysis. Results Among the 305 patients there were 146 males (47.9%) and 159 females (52.1%), median age 57 years old. Nucleic acid assay of nasopharynx swab or pharynx swab of 84.1% (228/271) patients were positive. Forty-six patients (15.1%) were in critical group and 259 patients (84.9%) were in non-critical group. The incubation period was one to fifteen days, and the median period was six days. The initial symptoms mainly were fever (81.1%, 163/201), cough (39.3%, 79/201), fatigue (54.7%, 110/201), and loss of appetite (50.2%, 101/201). In one to ten days after the disease onset, 79.1% (159/201) of patients developed gastrointestinal symptoms including nausea (29.4%, 59/201), vomiting (15.9%, 32/201), or abdominal pain (6.0%, 12/201). 49.5% (146/295) of patients had diarrhea, median time was 3.3 days, (3.3±1.6) times per day, and a duration of (4.1±2.5) days. Excluding possible drug-related diarrhea, the incidence of diarrhea still was 22.2%. Only 6.9% (4/58) of patients were found leukocytes or fecal occult blood positive in regular stool test. ALT, AST, or bilirubin increased in 39.1% (119/304) of patients at admission. Patients with ALT or AST ≥ 80 U/L only accounted for 7.9% (24/304) and 6.3% (19/304), respectively. About 2.0% (6/304) of patients also had increased bilirubin level, average level was (37.4 ± 21.1) μmol/L. The median age of critical group was older than that of non-critical group (65.5 years vs. 56 years), at admission the rates of abnormal liver function test abnormal and slightly increased AST (40~80 U/L) of critical group were both higher than those of non-critical group (67.4% (31/46) vs. 34.1% (88/258) and 47.8% (22/46) vs. 21.7% (56/228)), and the differences were statistically significant (x2=5.885, 18.154 and 15.723;all P 0.05). Conclusions The manifestation of digestive system of hospitalized NCP patients in Wuhan is significant, the ratio of patients with diarrhea and abnormal aminotransferase level is high. And at admission the rate of patients with abnormal liver function rate of critical group is higher than that of non-critical group, which will provide reference for the prevention and treatment of NCP. Key words: 2019-nCoV; Novel coronavirus pneumonia; Corona virus disease 2019; Diarrhea; Liver function; Gastrointestinal tract; Wuhan