A meta‐analysis was performed to identify patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) presenting with gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms during the first and second pandemic waves and investigate their association with the disease outcomes. A systematic search in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and EMBASE was performed up to July 25, 2020. The pooled prevalence of the GI presentations was estimated using the random‐effects model. Pairwise comparison for the outcomes was performed according to the GI manifestations' presentation and the pandemic wave of infection. Data were reported as relative risk (RR), or odds ratio and 95% confidence interval. Of 125 articles with 25,252 patients, 20.3% presented with GI manifestations. Anorexia (19.9%), dysgeusia/ageusia (15.4%), diarrhea (13.2%), nausea (10.3%), and hematemesis (9.1%) were the most common. About 26.7% had confirmed positive fecal RNA, with persistent viral shedding for an average time of 19.2 days before being negative. Patients presenting with GI symptoms on admission showed a higher risk of complications, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (RR = 8.16), acute cardiac injury (RR = 5.36), and acute kidney injury (RR = 5.52), intensive care unit (ICU) admission (RR = 2.56), and mortality (RR = 2.01). Although not reach significant levels, subgroup‐analysis revealed that affected cohorts in the first wave had a higher risk of being hospitalized, ventilated, ICU admitted, and expired. This meta‐analysis suggests an association between GI symptoms in COVID‐19 patients and unfavorable outcomes. The analysis also showed improved overall outcomes for COVID‐19 patients during the second wave compared to the first wave of the outbreak.

A novel, quick, reliable and simple capillary zone electrophoresis CZE method was developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of sitagliptin (SG) and metformin (MF) in pharmaceutical preparations. Separation was carried out in fused silica capillary (50.0 cm total length and 43.0 cm effective length, 49 μm i.d.) by applying a potential of 15 KV (positive polarity) and a running buffer containing 60 mM phosphate buffer at pH 4.0 with UV detection at 203 nm. The samples were injected hydrodynamically for 3 s at 0.5 psi and the temperature of the capillary cartridge was kept at 25^°C. Phenformin was used as internal standard (IS).The method was suitably validated with respect to specificity, linearity, limit of detection and quantitation, accuracy, precision, and robustness. The method showed good linearity in the ranges of 10-100 μg/mL and 50-500 μg/mL with limits of detection of 0.49, 2.11 μm/mL and limits of quantification of 1.48, 6.39 μg/mL for SG and MF, respectively. The proposed method was successfully applied for the analysis of the studied drugs in their synthetic mixtures and co-formulated tablets without interfering peaks due to the excipients present in the pharmaceutical tablets. The method was further extended to the in-vitro determination of the two drugs in spiked human plasma. The estimated amounts of SG/MF were almost identical with the certified values, and their percentage relative standard deviation values (% R.S.D.) were found to be ≤1.50% (n = 3). The results were compared to a reference method reported in the literature and no significant difference was found statistically.

In this study, a series of new, highly sensitive BF₂-chelated tetraarylazadipyrromethane dyes are synthesized and analyzed to be suitable as on/off photo-induced electron transfer modulated fluorescent sensors for determination of intracellular pH.