Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
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
Processing time: 92 Days and 9.9 Hours
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?

Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; Gastrointestinal symptoms; Intensive care unit; Variant

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.