Severe acute respiratory syndrome-related diarrhea.
BACKGROUND
Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an emerging infectious disease and diarrhea has been reported in up to 76% of cases. The purpose of the present paper was to carry out a retrospective study of the clinical and demographic data of SARS patients with diarrhea in Princess Margaret Hospital.


METHODS
From 1 to 31 March 2003, hospital records from 240 patients with confirmed SARS were studied. Patients with watery stool of >/=3 times/day for at least 3 consecutive days were defined as the diarrhea group. Clinical and demographic data were compared between the diarrhea and non-diarrhea groups. Chest X-ray (CXR) scores during the peak of diarrhea period were recorded by a respiratory physician. These CXR scores were correlated with the peak frequency of diarrhea by Spearman's correlation coefficient.


RESULTS
Diarrhea occurred in 20.4% of patients after admission. Female patients were predominant with a female to male ratio of 6:1 (P < 0.001) and 69.4% of patients were living in Amoy Gardens Estate (P = 0.01). The proportions of patients requiring ventilatory care and mortality in the diarrhea group were 8.2% and 2%, respectively, which were significantly lower than those in the non-diarrhea group (27.6% and 16.2%, P < 0.005). The CXR scores during the peak of diarrhea were not correlated with the maximum frequency of diarrhea (r = -0.09, P = 0.5).


CONCLUSIONS
A total of 20.4% of SARS patients had the complication of diarrhea after hospital admission. Both female sex and being a resident of Amoy Gardens Estate were associated with diarrhea. The diarrhea group had a better prognosis.
Kwan
Ambrose Chi-Pong
AC
Department of Medicine and Geriatrics, Princess Margaret Hospital, Hong Kong.
Chau
Tai-Nin
TN
Tong
Wing-Lok
WL
Tsang
Owen Tak-Yin
OT
Tso
Eugene Yuk-Keung
EY
Chiu
Ming-Chi
MC
Yu
Wai-Cho
WC
Lai
Thomas Sik-To
TS
D000328:Adult; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D003967:Diarrhea / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000821:virology*; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D008297:Male; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D012307:Risk Factors; D045169:Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome / Q000150:complications*; D012737:Sex Factors; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric