If you are showing gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain and diarrhea, then chances are high that you might be infected with Covid-19.

A team of researchers,  after examining findings from 36 studies published through July 15, said “There’s a growing amount of literature showing that abdominal symptomatology is a common presentation for Covid-19.”

Abdominal radiologists must remain vigilant during the pandemic while imaging patients, said the researchers in their study published in the journal Abdominal Radiology.

Mitch Wilson, a radiologist and clinical lecturer in the University of Alberta in Canada said “that In addition to gastrointestinal symptoms, they also determined potential signs radiologists should look for while conducting abdominal imaging that could be evidence of COVID-19 infection.”

Those signs include inflammation of the small and large bowel, air within the bowel wall (pneumatosis) and bowel perforation (pneumoperitoneum). The signs are quite rare, said the researchers, and could indicate patients with advanced disease.

“Seeing these things is not necessarily telling us a patient has COVID-19,” said Wilson.

“It could be from a variety of potential causes. But one of those potential causes is infection from the virus, and in an environment where COVID-19 is very prevalent, it’s something to consider and potentially raise as a possibility to the referring physician,” he said.

The researchers cited ten studies of 23 patients (2 of which are pediatric cases) demonstrating thickening of various regions of the small and large bowel wall. Hyperemia and mesenteric thickening have also been observed in tandem with bowel wall thickening, they said.