Liver function complications in COVID-19 patients

Abstract

Abstract. The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-Cov-2), the pathogen of 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), has posed a serious threat to global public health. The World Health Organization (WHO) has declared the outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 infection an international public health emergency. Lung lesions have been considered as the major damage caused by SARS-CoV-2 infection. Current literature has many published clinical studies focusing on implications of hepatic involvement in COVID-19. However, most of them are diverse because of variation in definition of liver injury, different clinical presentations and severity of the disease in individual studies. Additionally, there is no strong evidence showing association of outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with pre-existing chronic liver disease or liver injury. Similarly, previous studies have shown that liver damage was common in the patients infected by the other two highly pathogenic coronavirus – severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) and the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), and associated with the severity of diseases. In this review, the characteristics and mechanism of liver injury caused by SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV as well as SARS-CoV-2 infection were summarized, which may provide help for further studies on the liver injury of COVID-19.