Granulocyte and monocyte apheresis therapy for patients with active ulcerative colitis associated with COVID-19: a case report

Miki Koroku ¹, Teppei Omori ¹, Harutaka Kambayashi ¹, Shun Murasugi ¹, Tomoko Kuriyama ¹, Yuichi Ikarashi ¹, Maria Yonezawa ¹, Ken Arimura ², Kazunori Karasawa ³, Norio Hanafusa ⁴, Masatoshi Kawana ⁵, Katsutoshi Tokushige 

Intest Res 2022 Jan;20(1):150-155. doi: 10.5217/ir.2020.00148. Epub 2021 Mar 12

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by infection with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is now a pandemic. Although several treatment guidelines have been proposed for patients who have both inflammatory bowel disease and COVID-19, immunosuppressive therapy is essentially not recommended, and the treatment options are limited. Even in the COVID-19 pandemic, adjuvant adsorptive granulocyte and monocyte apheresis may safely bring ulcerative colitis (UC) into remission by removing activated myeloid cells without the use of immunosuppressive therapy. Our patient was a 25-year-old Japanese male with UC and COVID-19. This is the first case report of the induction of UC remission with granulocyte and monocyte apheresis treatment for active UC associated with COVID-19.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33902268/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8831771/