Acute Abdomen Following COVID-19 Vaccination. A Systematic Review.
Abstract
Aims: Conduct a systematic review of case reports and case series
regarding the development of acute abdomen following vaccination with
COVID-19, to describe in detail the possible association, the clinical
and demographic characteristics. Methods: Case report studies and case
series regarding the development of acute abdomen following COVID-19
vaccination were included. Systematic review studies, literature,
letters to the editor, brief comments, etc. were excluded. PubMed,
Scopus, EMBASE, and Web of Science databases were searched until June
15, 2023. The Joanna Brigs Institute tool was used to assess risk of
bias and study quality. Descriptive data were expressed as frequency,
median, mean, and standard deviation. Results: Seventeen clinical case
studies were identified and 17 patients with acute abdomen associated
with COVID-19 vaccination were evaluated, including: acute appendicitis
(n=3), acute pancreatitis (n=9), diverticulitis (n=1), cholecystitis
(n=2) and colitis (n=2). The most associated COVID-19 vaccine was
Pfizer-BioNTech (mRNA) with 64.71 %. The majority of cases acute
abdomen was after the first dose (52.94 %). All patients responded
objectively to medical (88.34 %) and surgical (11.76 %) treatment and
were discharged within a few weeks. There were no cases of death.
Conclusions: Acute abdomen is a rare complication of great interest in
the medical and surgical practice of COVID-19 vaccination, our study
reviewed based on a small sample of patients, therefore it is
recommended to conduct future observational studies and fully elucidate
the mechanisms by which this association occurs.