Two new studies disagree about whether people who have had a liver transplant are at greater risk of mortality if they contract COVID-19.

But they do agree on one thing: people who have had a liver transplant are more likely than the general population to develop gastrointestinal symptoms from the illness.

In the first study, reported in the Lancet Gastroenterology and Hepatology, data on 151 adult patients with previous liver transplant and proven infection with SARS-CoV-2 was obtained from two international registries (COVID-Hep and SECURE-Cirrhosis) covering the pandemic to 26 June.

Results in these patients (from the US, UK, Italy and 15 other countries) were compared with those of 627 people who had not had a liver transplant and were treated for COVID-19 at six hospitals in Oxford, UK.