Trends in inflammatory bowel disease infections and vaccinations in the past four decades: A high-level text mining analysis of PubMed publications

Aim: We aimed at assessing the published literature on different prophylactic screening and vaccination options in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients between 1980 and 2020. Special attention was attributed to latest data assessing covid-19 vaccinations. Methods: We have queried PubMed for all available IBD-related entries published during 1980–2020. The following data were extracted for each entry: PubMed unique article ID (PMID), title, publishing journal, abstract text, keywords (if any), and authors’ affiliations. Two gastrointestinal specialists decided by consensus on a list of terms to classify entries. The terms belonged to four treatment groups: opportunistic infections, prophylactic screening, prophylactic vaccinations/treatment, and routine vaccines. Annual trends of publications for the years 1980–2020 were plotted for different screening, vaccinations and infection types. Slopes of publication trends were calculated by fitting regression lines to the annual number of publications. Results: Overall, 98,339 IBD entries were published between 1980 and 2020. Of those, 7773 entries belonged to the investigated groups. Entries concerning opportunistic infections showed the sharpest rise, with 19 entries and 1980 to 423 entries in 2020 (slope 11.3, p <.001). Entries concerning prophylactic screening rose from 10 entries in 1980 to 204 entries in 2020 (slope 5.4, p <.001). Both entries concerning prophylactic vaccinations/treatments and routine vaccines did not show a significant rise (slope 0.33 and slope 0.92, respectively). During the COVID 19 pandemic, a total of 44 publications were identified. Of them, 37 were relevant to vaccines and immune reaction. Nineteen publications (51%) were guidelines/recommendations, and 14 (38%) assessed immune reaction to vaccination, most of them (11, 61%) to mRNA vaccines. Conclusions: During the past two decades, along with a rapid increase in biologic therapy, publications regarding opportunistic infections and prophylactic screening increased in a steep slope compared to the two decades in the pre-biologic area. During the COVID-19 pandemic, most publications included vaccination recommendations and guidelines and only 38% included real-world data assessing reaction to vaccinations. More research is needed.