Modified Corona Score can easily identify Covid-19 patients with gastrointestinal symptoms: An Italian proposal

Aim: We propose the Modified Corona Score (MCorona score), an alternative approach to identifying new likely Covid-19 patients without positive chest images, but with gastrointestinal onset.

Background: In April, 2020, a total of 104,291 laboratory-confirmed cases had been documented in Italy; Lombardy, the Northern Italian Region, recorded over 60,000 Covid-19 cases.

Method: The MCorona score is built by several laboratory parameters linked between age and gender, ranging from 0 to 10.

Results: Using the preliminary score cut-off of 4, we successfully identified likely Covid-19 patients with gastrointestinal onset. However, more caution is needed, and a larger sample size is required to verify the accuracy and specificity of the score.

Conclusion: We propose the complete validation of the MCorona score, an instrument able to diagnose likely Covid-19 patients with symptoms other than respiratory distress.