Patients with celiac disease who have COVID-19 are twice as likely to be hospitalized as are individuals without the autoimmune condition, a single-center US study shows.
However, vaccination against COVID-19 reduced the risk for hospitalization by almost half for both groups, the study finds.
"To our knowledge this is the first study that demonstrated a vaccination effect on mitigation of the risk of hospitalization in celiac disease patients with COVID-19 infection," write Alberto Rubio-Tapia, MD, director, Celiac Disease Program, Digestive Disease and Surgery Institute, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Ohio, and colleagues.
Despite the increased risk for hospitalization among patients with celiac disease, there were no significant differences between those with and without the condition with respect to intensive care unit requirement, mortality, or thrombosis, the researchers find.
The findings suggest that celiac disease patients with COVID-19 are "not inherently at greater risk for more severe outcomes," they write.
The study was published online in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.
Comparing Outcomes
Although it has been shown that patients with celiac disease have increased susceptibility to viral illnesses, research to date has found similar COVID-19 incidence and outcomes, including hospitalization, between patients with celiac disease and the general population, the researchers write.
However, the impact of COVID-19 vaccination is less clear, so the researchers set out to compare the frequency of COVID-19–related outcomes between patients with and without celiac disease before and after vaccination.
