Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jun 27, 2021; 13(6): 574-584
Published online Jun 27, 2021. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v13.i6.574
Acute pancreatitis and COVID-19: A literature review
Tiago Correia de Sá, Carlos Soares, Mónica Rocha
Tiago Correia de Sá, Carlos Soares, Mónica Rocha, Department of General Surgery, Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa, Penafiel 4564-007, Portugal
Author contributions: Correia de Sá T, Soares C, and Rocha M designed the research study and performed the research; Correia de Sá T analyzed the data and wrote the manuscript; All authors have read, reviewed, and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
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: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tiago Correia de Sá, MD, Surgeon, Department of General Surgery, Centro Hospitalar do Tâmega e Sousa, Avenida do Hospital Padre Américo 210, Penafiel 4564-007, Portugal. tiago.rc.sa@gmail.com
Received: January 10, 2021
Peer-review started: January 10, 2021
First decision: February 14, 2021
Revised: February 26, 2021
Accepted: June 1, 2021
Article in press: June 1, 2021
Published online: June 27, 2021
Core Tip

Core Tip: Recently, an association between acute pancreatitis (AP) and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been proposed, but the mechanisms of pancreatic injury of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are not fully understood. Although viral-induced AP is an established diagnosis, there is still insufficient evidence clearly showing COVID-19 as AP etiology. We conducted an in-depth analysis on the mechanisms of pancreatic injury by SARS-CoV-2 and reviewed published cases of AP in COVID-19 patients.