• Guoqun Wang, Lanlan Pan, Jianyi Zhao, Jie Tang, Yueyu Fang, Hui Sun, Poshita Kumari Seesaha, Wensen Chen, and Xiaofeng Chen.
• Department of Oncology, Pukou Branch Hospital of Jiangsu Province Hospital (Nanjing Pukou Central Hospital), Nanjing, China.
• Medicine (Baltimore). 2022 Jun 24; 101 (25): e29364e29364.

BackgroundDuring the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, endoscopic screening for gastrointestinal tumors was suspended or delayed in most countries. Thus, our study aimed to quantify the impact of COVID-19 on the clinical outcomes of patients with digestive system tumors through a systematic review and meta-analysis.MethodsWe systematically searched the PubMed, Web of Science, Cochrane Library, and Embase databases as of March 7, 2021 to identify the case fatality rate (CFR) of COVID-19 patients diagnosed with digestive system tumors. A random-effects model was used for meta-analysis, I2 was used to assess heterogeneity, and funnel plot was used to assess publication bias.ResultsA total of 13 studies were included, involving 2943 tumor patients with COVID-19, of which 871 were digestive system tumors, and the CFR was 24% (95% CI, 18%-30%; I2 = 55.7%). The mortality rate of colorectal cancer was 21% (95% CI, 14%-27%; I2 = 0.0%), gastric cancer was 25% (95% CI, 6%-45%; I2 = 0.0%), and hepatobiliary cancer was 29%. In general, there was no significant difference in the CFR of digestive system tumors.ConclusionThe combined CFR of digestive system tumors and COVID-19 patients was 24%, which is much higher than that of the general population. Under the premise of fully complying with the international guidelines to limit the spread of COVID-19, we call for the resumption of endoscopic screening programs and selective surgery as soon as possible.Registration InformationPROSPERO registration no. CRD42021248194.Copyright © 2022 the Author(s). Published by Wolters Kluwer Health, Inc.

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