Is There an Impact of COVID-19 on Admission of Patients to the Emergency Department for Vascular Surgery?

BACKGROUND: On March 2020, the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak a pandemic. During this period, surgical activity and admission to the Emergency Department (ED) decreased globally. The aim of this article is to understand how the admission of a patient to the ED for vascular surgery changed in our center in Portugal and if this situation prevented urgent surgical procedures. METHODS: Through a retrospective study, we compared the volume of patients admitted to the ED during the emergency state (ES) in Portugal with the same period in 2019. In addition, we analyzed the urgent surgical activity during the ES and in the correspondent period of the previous 10 years, regarding limb acute ischemia, acute aortic pathology, and vascular trauma. Two groups of patients were formed—patients operated during the ES and during the non-ES, for control. Statistical analysis was performed using IBM SPSS® Statistics, version 25. RESULTS: In the ES, 115 patients were observed at the ED and 179 in the 2019 corresponding period. During the ES, patients significantly recurred less to the ED directly from home (P < 0.001) and were less referred to the ED by primary care doctors (P < 0.001). Patients observed at the ED were significantly more urgent—required urgent surgery or were admitted to the department—than those in 2019 (40% vs. 24%). However, there were no differences when only considering urgent surgery (14% in ES vs. 10% in 2019). In the ES, 38% of patients observed at the ED were discharged with no follow-up related to vascular surgery against 60% in 2019, although this difference was not significant. Compared with the preceding 10 years, there are not significant differences in the number of patients who underwent urgent surgery in both ES and non-ES periods. In patients with acute limb ischemia, we did not find an increase in the time between onset of symptoms and ED admission, during the ES. CONCLUSIONS: Fewer patients were admitted at the ED during the ES, and those admitted were significantly more urgent. We did not find a decrease in the number of urgent surgeries when compared with the preceding 10 years. Therefore, we cannot assume that coronavirus pandemic precluded urgent surgical procedures.