Gastrointestinal symptoms and fecal nucleic acid testing of children with coronavirus disease 2019: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Abstract Objective: To understand the clinical manifestations and incidence of gastrointestinal symptoms of Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in children and discuss the importance of fecal nucleic acid testing.Methods: Retrospective analysis of studies of gastrointestinal symptoms and fecal nucleic acid detection in pediatric COVID-19 since the outbreak of COVID-19, as well as prospective clinical studies and case reports to understand the clinical characteristics of gastrointestinal symptoms and feces in children. Nucleic acid detection results were also analyzed.Results: 1. The clinical manifestations of gastrointestinal symptoms in children with COVID-19 are mostly vomiting and diarrhea, with a total incidence rate of 21.1% (95%Cl=0.14-0.28).2.When analyzing by country (studies from China versus studies from other countries), the pooled prevalence of gastrointestinal symptoms in studies from countries other than China was much lower at 18.2% (95% CI0.05 to 0.31). This is in comparison to studies from China where the prevalence was higher: 23.3% (95% CI 0.153 to 0.310) .3.In Wuhan patients, the pooled prevalence was much higher at 41.2% (95 % CI 0.147 to 0.678) as compared to areas outside Wuhan,China:15.1%(95 % CI 0.075 to 0.227).4.Fecal nucleic acid detection is as accurate as respiratory specimen nucleic acid detection. The positive rate of fecal nucleic acid testing in COVID-19 patients was 92.5% (25/27). In patients where nucleic acid tests of respiratory tract specimens produced negative results, a positive fecal nucleic acid test result was present in 83.3% (20/24); one week after the respiratory tract specimen was nucleic acid-negative, 54.1% (13/24) were fecal nucleic acid-positive; two weeks after the respiratory tract nucleic acid negative test, 37.5% (9/24) were fecal nucleic acid-positive. The longest interval between a negative respiratory system result and positive fecal specimen result exceeded 19 days.Conclusions and Relevance: Gastrointestinal symptoms in pediatric COVID-19 are relatively common. Attention should be paid to the detection of fecal nucleic acids in children. Fecal nucleic acid-negative status should be considered as one of the desegregation standards.