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Review
. 2020 May;40(5):998-1004.
doi: 10.1111/liv.14435. Epub 2020 Mar 30.

Liver injury during highly pathogenic human coronavirus infections

Ling Xu  1   2 , Jia Liu  1   2 , Mengji Lu  2   3 , Dongliang Yang  1   2 , Xin Zheng  1   2
Affiliations
Review

Liver injury during highly pathogenic human coronavirus infections

Ling Xu et al. Liver Int. 2020 May.

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 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. However, liver injury has also been reported to occur during the course of the disease in severe cases. 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.

Keywords: COVID-19; MERS; SARS; SARS-CoV-2; liver injury.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors disclose no conflicts of interest.

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