Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. May 28, 2024; 30(20): 2677-2688
Published online May 28, 2024. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v30.i20.2677
Excess non-COVID-19-related mortality among inflammatory bowel disease decedents during the COVID-19 pandemic
Sarah Rotondo-Trivette, Xin-Yuan He, Jamil S Samaan, Fan Lv, Emily Truong, Michaela Juels, Anthony Nguyen, Xu Gao, Jian Zu, Yee Hui Yeo, Fan-Pu Ji, Gil Y Melmed
Sarah Rotondo-Trivette, Department of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States
Xin-Yuan He, Xu Gao, Fan-Pu Ji, Department of Infectious Disease, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China
Jamil S Samaan, Emily Truong, Yee Hui Yeo, Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology Department of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States
Fan Lv, Jian Zu, School of Mathematics and Statistics, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710049, Shaanxi Province, China
Michaela Juels, Anthony Nguyen, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA 90095, United States
Xu Gao, Division of Gastroenterology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China
Fan-Pu Ji, National and Local Joint Engineering Research Center of Biodiagnosis and Biotherapy, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China
Fan-Pu Ji, Key Laboratory of Surgical Critical Care and Life Support (Xi’an Jiaotong University), Ministry of Education, Xi’an 710004, Shaanxi Province, China
Gil Y Melmed, Karsh Division of Gastroenterology and HepatologyDepartment of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States
Co-first authors: Sarah Rotondo-Trivette and Xin-Yuan He.
Co-corresponding authors: Fan-Pu Ji and Gil Y Melmed.
Author contributions: Rotondo-Trivette S and Samaan JS contributed to conceptualization; Rotondo-Trivette S and He XY were involved in the methodology; Rotondo-Trivette S contributed to the visualization; Rotondo-Trivette S, He XY, Truong E, Juels M, and Nguyen A wrote original draft; Rotondo-Trivette S, Samaan JS, Lv F, Truong E, Juels M, Nguyen A, Gao X, Zu J, Yeo YH, Ji FP, and Melmed GY participated in the review and editing; He XY, Lv F, and Zu J contributed to the data curation; He XY, Lv F, Gao X, and Zu J were involved in the formal analysis; Rotondo-Trivette S, Samaan JS, Ji FP, and Melmed GY contributed to the project administration; He XY and Yeo YH were involved in the validation; Yeo YH contributed to conceptualization; Yeo YH, Ji FP, and Melmed GY participated in the supervision. Rotondo-Trivette S and He XY contributed equally to this study. Ji FP and Melmed GY co-designed and co-supervised conduct research, and contributed equally to this study.
Institutional review board statement: Since all data from National Vital Statistics System were publicly available and completely de-identified, the study is deemed exempt from the Institutional Review Board statement.
Informed consent statement: Since all data from National Vital Statistics System were publicly available and completely de-identified, obtaining informed consent statement was not available in this study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Melmed GY discloses position as consultant/advisor to: Abbvie, Arena Pharmaceuticals, Boehringer-Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Eli Lilly, Genentech, Gilead, Ferring, Fresenius Kabi, Janssen, Oshi, Pfizer, Prometheus Labs, Samsung Bioepis, Takeda, Techlab. Ji FP discloses position as consultant/advisor to: Gilead Sciences, MSD, and speaker to: Gilead Sciences, MSD and Ascletis. All other authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated during and/or analyzed in the current study are available in the Statistics NCfH. Vital Statistics Online Data Portal repository, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/vitalstatsonline.htm#Mortality_Multiple.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Gil Y Melmed, MD, MSc, Professor of Medicine, Director, Infla-mmatory Bowel Disease Clinical Research; Associate Director, Karsh Division of Gastro-enterology and Hepatology, Department of Medicine, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, 8730 Alden Drive, Thalians Building, 2nd Floor East, Los Angeles, CA 90048, United States. gil.melmed@cshs.org
Received: November 20, 2023
Revised: January 10, 2024
Accepted: February 22, 2024
Published online: May 28, 2024
Processing time: 188 Days and 20.4 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic disrupted healthcare in the United States. Excess non-COVID-19-related mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic has been reported in several chronic conditions, including cardiovascular disease, alcohol use disorder, diabetes mellitus, and cirrhosis. We found that inflammatory bowel disease patients also experienced excess non-COVID-19-related mortality during the COVID-19 pandemic. Young ulcerative colitis patients and non-Hispanic black patients with Crohn’s disease were particularly affected, with 17.65% and 36.36% increase in non-COVID-19-related death in 2020, respectively.