New Delhi: The doctors at Sir Ganga Ram hospital in New Delhi said on Thursday that 14 post-Covid patients have been diagnosed with 'unusually large' and multiple liver abscesses, and one of them died due to massive bleeding in the abdomen. The hospital administration informed that these patients, ten men and four women in the age group of 28-74, were brought to the hospital in the last two months with unusual manifestations.
Dr Anil Arora, chairman, institute of liver gastroenterology and pancreaticobiliary sciences, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, said that a liver abscess (pus formation in the liver) is commonly caused by a parasite known as Entamoeba histolytica which is transmitted through contaminated food and water. Doctors suspect that poor nutrition and the use of steroids could have led to pus formation and compromised their livers.
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"What we found unusual was that after recovery from Covid-19, patients who were otherwise immunocompetent, within 22 days had large areas of both lobes of liver filled with pus at multiple locations, requiring drainage and hospitalization," Dr Arora said. While the lives of 13 of these patients could be saved, one patient with large multiple abscesses died due to massive bleeding in the abdomen after rupturing of abscess in the abdominal cavity, he said, adding the rest are stable and have been discharged.
Doctors said all the patients had "fever and upper abdominal pain and three of them also had associated lower GI (gastrointestinal) bleeding with black-coloured stool apart from high blood pressure". Out of these 14, eight of these patients had received steroids for the management of COVID-19 symptoms, Arora said. Six patients had multiple large abscesses in both lobes of the liver of which five patients had an unusually large abscess (more than 8 cm), the largest being 19 cm in size, the doctor said.
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"Three patients who had blood during stool discharge showed ulcers in the large intestine, which were detected by colonoscopy. Thirteen out of fourteen patients were successfully treated with antibiotics, Metronidazole medications and drainage of pus from the liver," Arora added. Entamoeba histolytica is a common parasite in countries with poor sanitation services. This parasite causes amoebiasis, an intestinal infection that is also called amoebic dysentery, the doctors said.
After an infection has occurred, the parasite may be carried by the bloodstream from the intestines to the liver and causes a liver abscess, they added.
(with agency inputs)
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