Infectious Disease

Serious COVID-19 infection risk for children with IBD is low regardless of immunosuppressive drugs

December 28, 2021

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Brenner E. et al. Poster 100th Presented at: Annual Meeting of the North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition; 12-18 December 2021 (virtual meeting).

Disclosure:
Brenner reports that this study was supported by AbbVie, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol Myers Squibb, Celltrion, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Helmsley Charitable Trust, Janssen, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, Pfizer, and Takeda.

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Children with inflammatory bowel disease were at low risk of developing severe COVID-19 infection even while taking immunosuppressive drugs, according to a poster.

“Children with IBD are often given immunosuppressive drugs that can increase the risk of infectious complications.” Erica Brenner, MD, MSCR, a Pediatric Gastroenterologist and Inflammatory Bowel Disease Fellow and Researcher at the University of North Carolina, and authors featured at the Annual Meeting of the North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition.

Brenner and colleagues analyzed pediatric IBD COVID-19 cases from 35 countries based on updated data from the Surveillance Epidemiology of Coronavirus Under Research Exclusion-IBD (SECURE-IBD) database.

Of the 540 patients examined (mean age 15.1 years; 242 women) there were no deaths and only 4% (n = 23) of the patients were hospitalized for COVID-19, with 1% (n = 5) requiring intensive care and 0.4% (n = 2) who require mechanical ventilation. Brenner noted that the ventilated patients had ulcerative colitis and were taking mesalamine.

When assessing the use of IBD drugs, 48% of patients used tumor necrosis factor antagonist monotherapy and 21% used sulfasalazine / mesalamine.

The authors concluded that hospitalization-related factors included patient non-IBD comorbidity, severity of IBD, gastrointestinal symptoms, Hispanic ethnicity, and steroids. After adjusting for disease activity, sulfasalazine / mesalamine use was not considered a risk factor (adjusted OR = 2.19; 95% CI 0.86–5.55). The use of TNF antagonist monotherapy decreased the likelihood of hospitalization.

The authors also found in their results that 86% of the children had no non-IBD comorbidities.

“This data can reassure families and providers of children with IBD,” the researchers write.

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North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition

North American Society of Pediatric Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition

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