The effects of COVID-19 on the progress of the disease in patients followed with inflammatory bottom disease

In December 2019, acute respiratory syndrome coronovirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spread rapidly and became a global epidemic as the cause of a series of pneumonia cases in Wuhan, China. This disease, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, has been defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "coronavirus disease-19" (COVID-19). It has been reported in studies that SARS-CoV-2 infection can be asymptomatic as well as show mainly respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms and can be fatal in severe cases. Studies have shown that angiotensin converting enzyme 2, which causes the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to bind to and infect the host cell, has higher tissue concentration in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). It is known that active disease status and use of immunomodulatory/immunosuppressive drugs increase the risk of infection in patients with IBD. In our study, we investigated whether COVID-19 has an effect on clinical activity status, treatment and disease prognosis in IBD patients who applied to our institution. In our study, a total of 91 COVID PCR-positive IBD patients, 44 of whom were UC and 47 with CD, who applied to our institution were included. 47 (51.6%) of the patients were female, 44 (48.4%) were male, mean age was 43.15±12.82 years. 64 (70.3%) patients have at least 1 vaccine. 20 patients (22%) stated that they were in the active disease period during the COVID-19 infection. 47.3% of the patients were receiving 5-ASA preparation, 18.7% steroid, 31.9% azariopurine, 41.8% TNF-alpha antagonist, 5.5% anti-integrin treatment. The most common symptom was diarrhea in 21 patients (23.1%), and anorexia was the second most common symptom in 20.9%, and abdominal pain was found to be 18% and it was found to be statistically significant. Treatment changes were made in only 6 patients, 2 UC out of 91 patients and 4 Crohn's patients required ward hospitalization, the ward hospitalization rate was 6.6% in total, the need for mechanical ventilation and death were not observed, and it was not found to be statistically significant. In conclusion; In our study, we show that COVID-19 has no effect on the activation of IBD, the need for treatment change, and the clinical course of IBD in IBD patients.