our editorial team at #AmJGastro just released a study from Wuhan, China reporting 48.5% of patients presented to hospital with a digestive symptom as their chief complaint.
One in 5 presented with either diarrhea, nausea, vomiting or belly pain as the presenting complaint. “Clinicians must bear in mind,” write the authors, “that digestive symptoms, such as diarrhea, may be a presenting feature of #COVID-19, & that the index of suspicion may need to be raised earlier in these cases rather than waiting for respiratory symptoms to emerge.” Moreover, patients with digestive symptoms had a worse clinical outcome and higher mortality. Emphasizes importance of including symptoms like diarrhea to suspect #COVID19. Currently, symptoms like diarrhea are not part of the #COVID19 diagnostic checklist. But new data suggest it’s more common than thought.
https://twitter.com/BrennanSpiegel/status/1240350588207894528
https://gi.org/2020/03/15/joint-gi-society-message-on-covid-19/