Impact of COVID-19 outbreak on acute gallbladder disease in the emergency department

OBJECTIVE: Acute gallbladder disease (AGD) is frequent in the emergency department (ED) and usually requires emergency surgery. However, only a few studies have reported the impact of COVID-19 on AGD. The goal of this study was to evaluate the time between symptom onset and surgery and the perioperative severity of AGD during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to before the era of COVID-19. METHODS: This retrospective, single-center cohort study included patients who presented to the ED with suspected AGD and who underwent emergency cholecystectomy. We designed a before-after comparative study, and the intervention was the COVID-19 outbreak. The 6-month period after the COVID-19 outbreak was defined as the post-COVID group, whereas the pre-COVID group consisted of the same period in the previous year. The primary outcome was the time from symptoms to surgery. We evaluated the time intervals between symptom onset and ED arrival and between ED arrival and surgery. The secondary outcomes were preoperative and postoperative severity indexes. RESULTS: A total of 316 patients was analyzed. The post-COVID group showed longer duration from symptom onset to ED arrival (34.0 hours vs. 15.0 hours, P<0.001) and longer time interval from ED arrival to surgery (16.2 hours vs. 10.2 hours, P<0.001) than the pre-COVID group. The overall time interval between symptom onset to surgery was longer in the post-COVID group than the pre-COVID group (71.5 hours vs. 33.5 hours, P<0.001). The post-COVID group showed higher preoperative Simplified Acute Physiology Score II scores than the pre-COVID group (20.1 vs. 18.2, P=0.045). The proportion of moderate or severe disease increased in the post-COVID group (78% vs. 65%, P=0.017). The durations of hospital stay (7.0 days vs. 5.0 days, P<0.001) and intensive care unit stay (27.1 hours vs. 10.8 hours, P=0.008) were longer in the post-COVID group than in the pre-COVID group. CONCLUSION: During the pandemic, the time interval between symptom onset to surgery was significantly increased among patients with AGD. Concomitantly, higher preoperative severity indexes and longer hospital stay were reported with a delay in emergency surgery.