Effect of covid-19 related cancellations of elective procedures on pediatric inflammatory bowel disease diagnosis

Esophagogastrodudenoscopy and colonoscopy (endoscopies) are instrumental in diagnosing pediatric inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The postponement of elective procedures throughout the United States in spring of 2020 due to COVID-19, drastically affected the number of endoscopies being performed and potentially led to delays in diagnosing pediatric IBD. This review utilized TriNetX database ecompassing 37 U.S. healthcare organizations to quantify the impact of postponement of endoscopies on diagnosis of new cases of pediatric IBD from March to May of 2020. The total number of endoscopies in patients without previous diagnosis of IBD and total number of newly identified pediatric IBD cases between March to May of 2020 was compared with that of the same three month period in each of the previous four years. Results showed a significant drop, both in the number of procedures and in newly diagnosed cases of pediatric IBD for March to May of 2020. We studied trends till March 2021, to assess whether the number of newly diagnosed pediatric IBD cases in the months after lifting of restrictions made up for this estimated lag from spring of 2020.