Inflammatory bowel diseases during the coronavirus pandemic: potential risks and ways to reduce them

This review is devoted to the current issues on management of the patients with inflammatory bowel diseases during the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Since March 2020, the World Health Organization with the support of international gastroenterological associations has launched a project for monitoring and reporting outcomes of COVID-19 occurring in inflammatory bowel diseases patients — SECURE-IBD aimed to define the impact of COVID-19 on patients with inflammatory bowel diseases and how factors such as age, comorbidities, and inflammatory bowel diseases treatments influence COVID outcomes (www.covidibd.org). According to the data of this Registry, no higher incidence of SARS-CoV-2 in patients with inflammatory bowel diseases compared to the general population has been reported. However, active inflammation, severe disease course, the induction period of immunosuppressive therapy and the use of systemic steroids are unfavorable predictors of severe COVID-19 infection course in case of inflammatory bowel diseases.