People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) do not increase their risk for COVID-19 by taking immunosuppressive drugs to control their symptoms, according to a study of more than 5,300 patients with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis published in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. "After weighing other known risk factors for COVID-19, including age, race, and other medical issues, we found that immunosuppressive therapy was not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19," coauthor Dr. Kristin Burke of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School told Reuters. "Amongst the people with IBD that got COVID-19, we also found that use of immunosuppressive medications did not increase risk of getting severe disease, which we defined as disease requiring hospitalization, intensive care unit stay, or death." As other studies have shown, however, older age and obesity were risk factors for severe COVID-19 in these patients, too. —Reuters Staff Source
