BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Fatty liver is one of the most common pre-existing illnesses;it can cause liver injury, leading to further complications for coronavirus disease 2019 patients. Our goal is to determine if pre-existing fatty liver is more prevalent in hospitalized COVID-19 patients compared to patients administrated before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and determine the severity of the disease among fatty liver patients. EXPERIMENTAL APPROACH This retro-perspective study involves a case and a control group consisting of 1162 patients;the case group contains hospitalized COVID-19 patients with positive PCR tests and available CT-scan;the control group contains patients with available imaging data previous to the COVID-19 pandemic. Patients’ data such as liver Hounsfield unit, days of hospitalization, number of affected lobes, and total lungs involvement score were extracted and compared between the patients. RESULTS The findings indicate that 37.9% of hospitalized COVID-19 patients have a pre-existing fatty liver, which is significantly higher ( P < 0.001) than the prevalence of pre-existing fatty liver in control group patients (9.02%). In comparison to hospitalized non-fatty liver COVID-19 patients, data from hospitalized COVID-19 patients with fatty liver indicates longer hospitalization length (6.81 ± 4.76 P = 0.02), a higher total lungs involvement score (8.73 ± 5.28 P < 0.001), and an increased number of affected lobes (4.42 ± 1.2 P < 0.001). CONCLUSION The statistical analysis shows fatty liver is much more prevalent among COVID-19 against non-COVID-19 patients, and they develop more severe disease and have to be hospitalized for more extended periods.
Role of Fatty Liver in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Patients' Disease Severity and Hospitalization Length: a Case-control Study