- Edelman-Klapper H, et al. Decreased Serologic Response to COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine in Patients with Inflammatory Bowel Diseases Treated with Anti-TNFα: A Prospective, Multi-Center Israeli Study. OP020, UEG Week 2021 Virtual Congress, 3-5 October.
IBD patients are exposed to infections, and they need (COVID-19) vaccines. However, anti-TNFα therapy has been associated with a reduced immune response to vaccines, stated Ms Hadar Edelman-Klapper (Rabin Medical Center, Israel)1. To what extent IBD patients on anti-TNFα therapy show a decreased immune response to COVID-19 mRNA vaccines has not yet been investigated.
Therefore, the current study examines the immunogenicity and safety of the BNT 162b2 mRNA vaccine in IBD patients stratified by treatment type (anti-TNFα: n=67, non-anti-TNFα: n=118) and healthy controls (n=73). Primary outcome measures are the seropositivity rate and the magnitude of the immune response. IBD patients treated with anti-TNFα showed a lower serological response than healthy controls and IBD patients on non-anti-TNFα therapies (P<0.001) after the second dose of the mRNA vaccine.
Interestingly, after the first vaccine dose, a significantly lower number of the anti-TNFα patients had reached the seropositivity threshold of 50 Arbitrary Units/ml, compared with non-anti-TNFα receivers and healthy controls. Nonetheless, infection rate after the second vaccination was less than 2% in all groups and adverse events rates did not differ between anti-TNFα receivers, non-anti-TNF α receivers, and healthy controls.
The authors did not find correlations between vaccine response and drug levels, anti-drug antibodies, or interval time between drug and vaccine administration. This suggests that modification of the timing of the vaccine will not change the results of this study.