Edward V. Loftus Jr., MD

This month’s Healio Gastroenterology Exclusive highlights a problem that we as physicians “feel” either directly or indirectly nearly every day — labor shortages.

This month’s Healio Exclusive highlights the efficacy of Janus kinase inhibitors in the management of ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease.

If you see more than a few patients with inflammatory bowel disease, you likely already have been asked by a third-party payer to switch a patient’s adalimumab prescription from the reference product to a biosimilar.

In this month’s issue, we are highlighting the important topic of multidisciplinary care of our gastroenterology patients.

The past year has seen quite a few new developments in inflammatory bowel disease therapy.

There are no easy solutions for the ongoing and increasing shortage in GI providers — everybody is feeling this challenge.

This month’s cover story features the perspectives of gastroenterologists looking back on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on gastrointestinal care.

I hope everyone is safe and well. The delta virus peak is surging in the Upper Midwest. Hopefully we will get a bit of a reprieve in the new year.

The body of knowledge around the COVID-19 pandemic is fast moving and always expanding. Fortunately, in most parts of the country, the recent “delta wave” seems to be subsiding. However, our patients still have many questions about COVID, especially around the topic of vaccination. This month’s cover story focuses on the need for an additional dose of vaccine.

I remember being flummoxed as a first-year gastroenterology fellow when we had an elderly patient on service with abdominal pain and weight loss who ended up diagnosed with ileocolonic Crohn’s disease. Our “IBD antennae” are often finely tuned when we see a patient in their late teens or 20s with such symptoms, but maybe not so much in an octogenarian. Indeed, in a recent update of the inception cohorts of Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis in Olmsted County, Minnesota, we had noted that two-thirds of Crohn’s disease patients and about 60% of ulcerative colitis patients were diagnosed under the age of 40 years. However, flipping this around, this means that one-third of patients with Crohn’s disease and 40% of patients with UC are diagnosed in their fifth decade of life or later.