A recent study presented at the ECCO22 Virtual Congress of the European Crohns and Colitis Organisation (ECCO), which concluded yesterday, has identified two factors to be significantly associated with a greater risk for developing long Covid symptoms.

Ulcerative colitis patients who stopped taking the prescribed immunosuppressive drugs because of COVID-19 were 1.5 times at higher risk of experiencing symptoms of long Covid. No association was noted for systemic steroids. Likewise, Crohn’s disease patients who required to be hospitalized for severe Covid had greater probability of developing long Covid with odds ratio of 2.76.

Attauabi et al included patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) with lab-confirmed Covid-19 in this study from January 28, 2020 to April 1st, 2021 from the population-based Danish IBD-COVID registry. The study group comprised 319 patients with ulcerative colitis and 197 patients with Crohn’s disease. The final analysis of post-Covid symptoms at 5.1 months included 85 people with CD and 137 with UC.

Findings show that an almost equal number of patients in both groups reported continuation of Covid symptoms after three months of the acute infection; UC 42.3% vs CD 45.9%. The most commonly occurring symptom in the post-acute Covid period was fatigue, which was reported by 36.5% of patients with CD and 35.8% with UC. The other frequent symptoms were anosmia reported by 27% of those with UC and 29.4% with Crohn’s disease and ageusia, which was reported by 28.2% of Crohn’s disease patients and 19% of those with ulcerative colitis. Other symptoms included headache (UC13.9% vs CD 18.8%), dyspnea (UC 13.9% vs CD 18.8%) and arthralgia (UC 12.4% vs CD 16.5%).

This study has identified the long-term sequelae of Covid-19 in patients with IBD and highlights the need to closely monitor these patients to detect and manage symptoms of long Covid.

Reference

1. Attauabi M, et al ; Danish COVID-IBD Study Grou. DOP23 Long-term health consequences of COVID-19 in patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases – A Danish prospective population-based cohort study. Available at: https://www.ecco-ibd.eu/publications/congress-abstracts/item/dop23-long-term-health-consequences-of-covid-19-in-patients-with-inflammatory-bowel-diseases-a-danish-prospective-population-based-cohort-study.html