Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.
World J Gastroenterol. Nov 21, 2026; 32(43): 120573
Published online Nov 21, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.120573
Published online Nov 21, 2026. doi: 10.3748/wjg.120573
Influence of pregnancy on outcomes of inflammatory bowel disease and treatment discontinuation
Oguz Ozturk, Mucahit Ergul, Emir Tugrul Keskin, Eren Yilmaz, Kadir Can Acun, Ali Atay, Ilhami Yuksel, Department of Gastroenterology, Ankara Bilkent City Hospital, Ankara 06800, Türkiye
Muhammed Bahaddin Durak, Department of Gastroenterology, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara 06120, Türkiye
Yavuz Cagir, Department of Gastroenterology, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University Yenimahalle Training and Research Hospital, Ankara 06105, Türkiye
Ilhami Yuksel, Department of Gastroenterology, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, Ankara 06800, Türkiye
Author contributions: Ozturk O, Durak MB, Cagir Y, Ergul M, Keskin ET, Yilmaz E, Acun KC, Atay A, and Yuksel I performed the data collection; Ozturk O and Yuksel I conceptualized the study, planned the design of the study, performed data analysis, interpreted the data, and drafted the manuscript. All authors revised and approved the final version of the manuscript to be submitted.
AI contribution statement: To ensure clarity, grammatical accuracy, and fluency in academic English, we used DeepL and QuillBot solely for language polishing and paraphrasing. These AI tools were only applied to refine the authors’ original ideas and were not used to generate any scientific arguments, interpretations, or data.
Institutional review board statement: The study received approval from the Ethics Committee of Ankara Bilkent City Hospital (Approval No. TABED 1-24-373) and was conducted in accordance with the principles set out in the Declaration of Helsinki.
Informed consent statement: All participants have signed the relevant informed consent forms.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The technical appendix, statistical code, and dataset are available from the corresponding author. This approach was reviewed and approved by the institutional ethics committee.
Corresponding author: Ilhami Yuksel, MD, Professor, Department of Gastroenterology, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara Yildirim Beyazit University, İhsan Doğramacı Caddesi, Bilkent, Ankara 06800, Türkiye. yukselilhami@hotmail.com
Received: March 5, 2026
Revised: March 23, 2026
Accepted: May 19, 2026
Published online: November 21, 2026
Processing time: 206 Days and 10.3 Hours
Revised: March 23, 2026
Accepted: May 19, 2026
Published online: November 21, 2026
Processing time: 206 Days and 10.3 Hours
Core Tip
Core Tip: This study indicates that treatment discontinuation during pregnancy constitutes a substantial and preventable cause of disease exacerbation in women diagnosed with inflammatory bowel diseases, particularly ulcerative colitis. The related increase in the need for salvage steroid therapy reflects the critical importance of pre-pregnancy counseling to ensure treatment compliance and improve maternal and fetal outcomes.