Search

• Asymptomatic patients with COVID-19 tend to be younger and may be more socially active. • Laboratory findings in most asymptomatic cases were unremarkable. • Around half of the cases had lung opacities, most frequently ground glass opacities. • Patients with normal CT were younger than patients with abnormal CT. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) is characterized by an unpredictable disease course, ranging from asymptomatic to severe, life-threatening infections. Asymptomatic COVID-19 infections have been described, and the aim of this systematic review was to summarise their presentation forms. We searched PubMed® and Google® (1 December 2019 to 29 March 2020) and extracted age, laboratory findings, and computed tomography (CT) scans. Pooled incidence rates of clinical characteristics were analyzed using random-effect models. In total, 506 patients from 34 studies (68 single cases and 438 from case-series) with an asymptomatic course were identified. Patients with normal radiology were younger (19.59 ± 17.17 years) than patients with abnormal radiology (39.14 ± 26.70 years) (p -value = 0.013). Despite being asymptomatic, CT investigations revealed abnormalities in 62.2% of the cases; ground-glass opacities were most frequently observed (43.09% by meta-analysis). Most studies reported normal laboratory findings (61.74% by meta-analysis). More than half of the patients without any symptoms present with CT abnormalities. Asymptomatic patients may be contagious and thus a potential source of transmission of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]