ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) are chronic, immune-mediated inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD) affecting millions of people worldwide. IBD therapies, designed for continuous immune suppression, often render patients more susceptible to infections. The effect of the immune suppression on the risk of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) is not fully determined yet. OBJECTIVE: To describe COVID-19 characteristics and outcomes and to evaluate the association between IBD phenotypes, infection outcomes and immunomodulatory therapies. METHODS: In this multi-center study, we prospectively followed IBD patients with proven COVID-19. De-identified data from medical charts were collected including age, gender, IBD type, IBD clinical activity, IBD treatments, comorbidities, symptoms and outcomes of COVID-19. A multivariable regression model was used to examine the effect of immunosuppressant drugs on the risk of infection by COVID-19 and the outcomes. RESULTS: Of 144 IBD patients, 104 (72%) were CD and 40 (28%) were UC. Mean age was 32.2 ± 12.6 years. No mortalities were reported. In total, 94 patients (65.3%) received biologic therapy. Of them, 51 (54%) at escalated doses, 10 (11%) in combination with immunomodulators and 9 (10%) with concomitant corticosteroids. Disease location, behavior and activity did not correlate with the severity of COVID-19. Biologics as monotherapy or with immunomodulators or corticosteroids were not associated with more severe infection. On the contrary, patients receiving biologics had significantly milder infection course (p = 0.001) and were less likely to be hospitalized (p = 0.001). Treatment was postponed in 34.7% of patients until recovery from COVID-19, without consequent exacerbation. CONCLUSION: We did not witness aggravated COVID-19 outcomes in patients with IBD. Patients treated with biologics had a favorable outcome.
ABSTRACT
AIM: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a recently encountered disease that was declared a pandemic by WHO in 2020. Obesity and other components of the metabolic syndrome may aggravate the severity of COVID-19. Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) represents the hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome. The aim of this study was to investigate a possible association between MAFLD and COVID-19 severity. METHODS: We performed a retrospective, case-control study, enrolling 71 consecutive COVID-19 patients who were divided into two groups according to the presence or absence of fatty liver by computed tomography scan. All medical records of eligible patients were reviewed including demographic, clinical, laboratory parameters and data regarding the presence of NAFLD and COVID-19 severity. RESULTS: NAFLD was identified in 22/71 (31%) of the study group. Out of 71, thirteen suffered from severe COVID-19. NAFLD patients had more severe COVID-19 compared with non-NAFLD subjects, 8/22 (36.3%) vs. 5/49(10.2%), (P < 0.005), respectively. Multiple logistic regression analysis showed that NAFLD subjects were more likely to have severe COVID-19 disease (odds ratio 3.57, 95% confidence interval: 1.22, 14.48, P = 0.0031). CONCLUSION: NAFLD represents a high risk for severe COVID-19 irrespective to gender, and independent of metabolic syndrome specifically in male gender. Moreover, obesity, hypertension and metabolic syndrome were also significantly associated with severe COVID-19.