Lower severity
COVID-19 severity was numerically but not significantly lower among the 88 vaccinated patients, with a rate of 5.7%, compared with 9.3% among 2,317 patients with COVID-19 infections in the database who were not vaccinated.
COVID-19 severity defined as a composite of ICU admission, need for mechanical ventilation and/or death was actually slightly higher among the vaccinated patients, with a rate of 3.4% versus 1.9% for nonvaccinated patients, but this difference was not statistically significant.
There was 1 death among vaccinated patients (1.1%) versus 29 among the unvaccinated (1.2%).
There were trends toward fewer hospitalizations and less-frequent severe COVID-19 infection among patients who received a mRNA vaccine, compared with other vaccine types, but again these differences did not reach statistical significance.
As noted before, there was a higher frequency of severe COVID-19 among patients on combination therapy than on monotherapy, but this difference too was not statistically significant.
As seen with COVID-19 in the general population older patients tended to have worse outcomes, with a mean age of 53 for patients requiring hospitalization, compared with 39 years for patients who stayed out of the hospital (P = .04), and a mean age of 59 among patients with severe COVID-19 infections, compared with 39 for patients with moderate or mild infections (P = .03).
Ms. Spiera described the case of the single vaccinated patient who died. The 63-year-old woman had moderately active Crohn’s disease treated with corticosteroids, adalimumab (Humira) and azathioprine at the time of COVID-19 infection. She had received the AstraZeneca adenoviral-based vaccine more than 30 days prior to infection. She was hospitalized and intubated, and died from gastrointestinal bleeding.
Ms. Spiera noted that, although the sample size was small, and only patients known to have COVID-19 were included, it is one of the largest cohorts to date of vaccinated patients with IBD who developed COVID-19. She said that the study supports prior studies showing that combination therapy and tumor necrosis factor antagonists may result in reduced immunity, and that mRNA vaccines may offer better protection against severe illness in this population.
The study was supported by a Digestive Disease Research Foundation Fellowship. Ms. Spiera and Dr. Caldera reported no relevant disclosures.