Clinical characteristics of 70 patients with coronavirus disease 2019 accompanied with diarrhea

Abstract

Objective To retrospectively analyze the clinical characteristics of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) accompanied with diarrhea. Methods From January 11 to February 6 in 2020, the clinical data of 663 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 admitted to Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University were collected. According to whether with diarrhea, the patients were divided into with diarrhea group and without diarrhea group. The differences in general condition, clinical manifestation, chest computed tomography (CT), laboratory findings, disease severity and death situation between two groups were compared. Chi-square test, Fisher exact test and Mann-Whitney U test were performed for statistical analysis. Results Among 663 COVID-19 patients, 70 (10.6%) patients accompanied with diarrhea. The ratio of fatigue and increased lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) of with diarrhea group were higher than those of without diarrhea group (58.6%, 41/70 vs. 28.2%, 167/593; and 64.2%, 43/67 vs. 50.4%, 277/550), and the differences were statistically significant (χ2=26.891 and 4.566, both P 0.05). There were no statistically significant differences in the ratio of mild and normal type, severe type and critical type between diarrhea group and without diarrhea group (35.7%, 25/70 vs. 38.6%, 229/593; 50.0%, 35/70 vs. 47.2%, 280/593; and 14.3%, 10/70 vs. 14.2%, 84/593, respectively) (χ2=0.240, P=0.887). There were no statistically significant differences in the ratio of death of each corresponding mild and normal type, severe type and critical type between diarrhea group and without diarrhea group (0 vs. 0.5%, 3/593; 0 vs 0 and 1.4%, 1/70 vs. 3.5%, 21/593) (Fisher exact test, all P>0.05). Conclusions Patients with COVID-19 accompanied with diarrhea are more likely to have fatigue and increased LDH. Diarrhea is not significantly correlated with the disease severity of patients with COVID-19. Key words: COVID-19; Diarrhea; Clinical characteristics; Disease severity