TY - JOUR T1 - Response to: ‘Correspondence on ‘Prevalence and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with autoimmune diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis’’ by Lee JF - Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases JO - Ann Rheum Dis SP - e84 LP - e84 DO - 10.1136/annrheumdis-2021-219918 VL - 82 IS - 4 AU - Shintaro Akiyama AU - Shadi Hamdeh AU - Dejan Micic AU - Atsushi Sakuraba Y1 - 2023/04/01 UR - http://ard.bmj.com/content/82/4/e84.abstract N2 - We thank Lee1 for his comments to our research article ‘Prevalence and clinical outcomes of COVID-19 in patients with autoimmune diseases: a systematic review and meta-analysis’.2 In our study, included patients were likely on glucocorticoids (GCs) for their underlying autoimmune diseases (ADs), not for COVID-19-associated pneumonia and cytokine release syndrome. Hence, our data suggested the possibility of harmful effects of chronic use of GCs on the risk of developing SARS-CoV-2 infection and severe COVID-19. We were unable to analyse the therapeutic effect of GCs in patients with ADs who developed COVID-19 pneumonia. As stated in the correspondence by Lee,1 a systematic review and … ER -