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THURSDAY, Oct. 1, 2020 (HealthDay News) — A higher rate of gastrointestinal complications, including mesenteric ischemia, occurs among critically ill patients with COVID-19 versus matched patients without COVID-19, according to a research letter published online Sept. 24 in the Journal of the American Medical Association<\/i>.<\/p>\n
Mohamad El Moheb, M.D., from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues compared the incidence of gastrointestinal complications of critically ill patients with COVID-19-induced acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) versus propensity-matched and comparably ill patients with non-COVID-19 ARDS treated between March 13 and May 7, 2020. The final analysis included 92 patients in each group.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that patients with COVID-19 were more likely to develop gastrointestinal complications versus those without COVID-19 (74 versus 37 percent; incidence rate ratio, 2.33). This difference in incidence was more pronounced after the third day of critical illness. Patients with COVID-19 developed more transaminitis (55 versus 27 percent), severe ileus (48 versus 22 percent), and bowel ischemia (4 versus 0 percent). Among patients with COVID-19 and bowel ischemia, pathology findings showed fibrin thrombi in the microvasculature underlying areas of necrosis.<\/p>\n
These findings suggest “a distinct phenotype for COVID-19 compared with conventional ARDS,” the authors write.<\/p>\n
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