Etiological Profile of Epistaxis: Pre-Pandemic Versus Pandemic.

Abstract

Nosebleed or epistaxis is one of the most common forms of presenting an emergency in the ENT field. Since March 11, 2020, the World Health Organisation has proclaimed COVID-19 a global pandemic, and the world has been closed down. The main objective of the study is to analyse and compare the dynamics of epistaxis aetiology among the cases that required hospitalisation in the pre-pandemic period and the period of the COVID 19 pandemic. The study is multicenter retrospective from October 2018 to May 2022, including 380 cases of hospitalised epistaxis, with the mention that March 2020 is considered the beginning of the pandemic period. 60.8% of the patients enrolled in the study in the pre-pandemic period (60.8%) and 39.2% in the pandemic period. Differences between groups were not statistically significant between study entries (pre-pandemic vs. pandemic) and age (p=0.331), gender (p=0.916) or existence of local causes for epistaxis (p=0.895). Patients with general causes for epistaxis were more frequently enrolled in the pandemic period, while patients without general causes for epistaxis were more frequently enrolled in the pre-pandemic period. Patients with a hospitalisation period of more than 5 days were more frequently enrolled in the pre-pandemic period while patients with a hospitalisation period of 3 to 5 days were more frequently enrolled in the pandemic period. Also, patients with idiopathic epistaxis were more frequently enrolled in the pre-pandemic period. Based on the results presented in our study, the period of the Covid 19 pandemic directly influenced both the number of patients and the period of hospitalisation.