Clinical presentation of COVID-19 in patients with inflammatory bowel disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

Singh, Anupam K; Jena, Anuraag; Kumar-M, Praveen; Jha, Daya Krishna; Sharma, Vishal

Background/Aims Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is recognized to have variable clinical manifestations. The clinical presentation of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) having COVID-19 is unclear. Methods We identified articles reporting about the clinical presentation of COVID-19 in those with underlying IBD from PubMed and Embase. The studies, irrespective of design or language, were included. The overall pooled frequency of various symptoms was estimated. Joanna Briggs Institute Critical appraisal checklist was used to assess the quality of studies. Results Eleven studies, including 1,325 patients, were included in the pooled analysis. The pooled estimates for clinical presentation were; fever: 67.53% (95% confidence interval [CI], 45.38-83.88), cough: 59.58% (95% CI, 45.01-72.63), diarrhea: 27.26% (95% CI, 19.51-36.69), running nose: 27% (95% CI, 15.26-43.19) and dyspnea: 25.29% (95% CI, 18.52-33.52). The pooled prevalence rates for abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting were 13.08% (95% CI, 9.24-18.19), 10.08% (95% CI, 5.84-16.85) and 8.80% (95% CI, 4.43-16.70) per 100 population, respectively. Conclusions The clinical presentation of COVID-19 in IBD patients is similar to the general population.