Novel unorthodox strategies to reduce the case fatality rate of COVID-19 in high risk groups.

Dear editors: We propose novel strategies to combat the COVID-19 outbreak, that are aimed at high-risk groups and might reduce the progression to severe forms of COVID and thus decrease the very high case fatality rate.Following the first reports of the outbreak of several cases of acute respiratory distress syndrome in the Chinese city of Wuhan at the end of December 2019, a novel beta coronavirus, named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 or 2019-nCoV) as the main causative agent was identified while the disease associated with was named by WHO as COVID-19 (1, 2). The outbreak has rapidly spread globally with more than 150.

Seasonal changes of circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D correlate with the lower gut microbiome composition in inflammatory bowel disease patients.

Higher probability of the development of Crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC) as a possible consequence of the north-south gradient has been recently suggested. Living far north or south of the equator is manifested in fluctuation of vitamin D (vitD) levels depending on the season in both healthy and affected individuals. In the present study we investigate the possible link between the seasonal serum vitD level to the microbial composition of the lower gut of Inflammatory Bowel disease (IBD) patients using 16S rRNA sequencing.

Impact of smoking cigarette on the mRNA expression of cytokines in mucosa of inflammatory bowel disease.

It is well known that smoking is the risk factor in the development and clinical course of Crohn s disease (CD), but on the other hand, smoking is a protective factor against ulcerative colitis (UC). The pathways that are influenced by smoking in CD and UC are poorly understood. The aim of our study was to analyse the influence of smoking on the mRNA expression of cytokines in mucosa in patients with CD and UC.

Pathophysiology and risk factors for cholelithiasis in patients with Crohn's disease.

Cholelithiasis is more common in patients with Crohn's disease (CD) than in the healthy population. The aim here was to examine risk factors for cholelithiasis in a cohort of CD patients and to compare the prevalence of cholelithiasis in a cohort of CD patients with that in a control group. This was a single-center retrospective case-control study.

Dosing interval and diagnosis predict infliximab levels in patients with inflammatory bowel disease on maintenance treatment.

Objective: The aim of the study was to identify factors influencing infliximab (IFX) trough levels (TL) in patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Methods: This was a multicentre cross-sectional study performed at 5 large IBD centres in Slovakia. The cohort consisted of IBD patients, treated either with original IFX or CT-P13 biosimilar, who were examined for the IFX TL and antidrug antibodies (ADA) in a central laboratory.