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Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on the utilization of acute surgical care in the State of Salzburg, Austria: retrospective, multicenter analysis

BACKGROUND: Some medical disciplines have reported a strong decrease of emergencies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; however, the effect of the lockdown on general surgery emergencies remains unclear. METHODS: This study is a retrospective, multicenter analysis of general sur...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Presl, Jaroslav, Varga, Martin, Mittermair, Christof, Mitterwallner, Stefan, Weitzendorfer, Michael, Gabersek, Ana, Borhanian, Kurosch, Heuberger, Andreas, Weiss, Helmut, Emmanuel, Klaus, von Rahden, Burkhard, Koch, Oliver Owen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer Vienna 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7930888/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33686347
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10353-021-00692-1
Descripción
Sumario:BACKGROUND: Some medical disciplines have reported a strong decrease of emergencies during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; however, the effect of the lockdown on general surgery emergencies remains unclear. METHODS: This study is a retrospective, multicenter analysis of general surgery emergency operations performed during the period from 1 March to 15th 2020 lockdown and in the same time period of 2019 in three medical centers providing emergency surgical care to the area Salzburg-North, Austria. RESULTS: In total 165 emergency surgeries were performed in the study period of 2020 compared to 287 in 2019. This is a significant decrease of 122 (42.5%) emergency surgeries during the COVID-19 lockdown (p = 0.005). The length of hospital stay was reduced to 3 days in 2020 compared to 4 in 2019. Appendectomy remained the most performed emergency surgery for both periods; however the number of surgeries was reduced to less than a half, with 72 cases in 2019 and 33 cases in 2020 (p = 0.118). Emergency colon surgery observed the strongest decrease of 75% from 17 cases in 2019 to 4 in 2020. In addition, the emergency abdominal wall hernia, cholecystectomies for acute cholecystitis, small surgeries and proctological emergencies recorded drops of 70%, 39%, 33% and 47% respectively. The strongest reduction in frequencies of emergency surgeries was reported from the designated COVID center in the examined region. CONCLUSIONS: Emergency general surgery is an essential service that continues to run under all circumstances. Our data show that COVID-19-related restrictions have resulted in a significant decrease in the utilization of acute surgical care.