| Autor: |
Weiss H, Heuberger A, Martin Varga, Klaus Emmanuel, S Mitterwallner, Michael Weitzendorfer, K Borhanian, Rahden Bv, Jaroslav Presl, Koch Oo, Mittermaier C |
| Rok vydání: |
2020 |
| Předmět: |
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| DOI: |
10.21203/rs.3.rs-70079/v1 |
| Popis: |
Background: The emergency general surgery encompasses the care of critically ill patients, with a potentially high mortality if delayed. As some medical disciplines have reported a strong decrease of emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic, remains the effect of the Lockdown on the general surgery emergencies unclear. Methods:This study is a retrospective, multicentre analysis of the general surgery emergency operations performed during the 2020 Lockdown and in the same period of 2019 in three centers covering the surgical care of the area Salzburg-North, Austria. Results: In total 165 emergency surgeries were performed in the study period of 2020 compared to 287 in Year 2019. This is a significant decrease of 122 (42.5%) emergency surgeries during the COVID-19 Lockdown (p=0.005). The average length of hospital stay in the 2019 was in median 4 days and was reduced to 3 days during the Lockdown. Appendectomy remained the most performed emergency surgery for the both periods but the operations count reduced to less than a half with 72 cases in 2019 and 33 cases in 2020 (p=0.118). Considering the ration of appendectomy vs all emergency surgeries, it represented 25 % in 2019 and 20% in 2020. The 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. A strongest reduction in frequency of 6 of 13 main categories of emergency surgeries was reported from Center 1, which was the only COVID designed Center (“Hot” hospital) in the examined region.Conclusions:The emergency general surgery is an essential service that continues to run under any circumstances. Our data showed that the COVID-19 related restriction and the fear of being infected with COVID-19 in the hospital result in a significant decrease of the utilization of acute surgical care. Policies and modern alternatives are needed to ensure continued access to specialized services to prevent patients from harm. |
| Databáze: |
OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
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