Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in nuclear medicine departments: preliminary report of the first international survey

PURPOSE: Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) pandemic is challenging the availability of hospital resources worldwide. The Young Group of the Italian Association of Nuclear Medicine (AIMN) developed the first international survey to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 in nuclear medicine (NM). The aim of this study was to perform a preliminary report of the ongoing survey. METHODS: A questionnaire of thirty questions was prepared for all NM professionals addressing three main issues: (1) new scheduling praxes for NM diagnostic and therapeutic procedures, (2) assistance of patients with diagnosed or suspected COVID-19, and (3) prevention of COVID-19 spreading in the departments. An invitation to the survey was sent to the corresponding authors of NM scientific papers indexed in SCOPUS in 2019. Personal data were analysed per individual responder. Organisation data were evaluated per single department. RESULTS: Two-hundred and ninety-six individual responders from 220 departments were evaluated. Most of the responders were from Europe (199/296, 67%). Approximately, all departments already changed their scheduling praxes due to the pandemic (213/220, 97%). In most departments, scheduled diagnostic and therapeutic procedures were allowed but quantitatively reduced (112/220, 51%). A significant reduction of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures (more than 20%) affected 198/220 (90%) and 158/220 (72%) departments, respectively. Incidental COVID-19 signs in NM exams occurred in 106/220 departments (48%). Few departments were closed or shifted to assist patients with COVID-19 (36/220, 16%). Most of the responders thought that pandemic would not permanently change the work of NM departments in the future (189/296, 64%). CONCLUSIONS: According to this preliminary report of the first international survey, COVID-19 heavily impacted NM departments and professionals. New praxes for NM procedures, assistance, and prevention of COVID-19 have been applied during the pandemic.