Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on the utilization of acute surgical care in the State of Salzburg, Austria: retrospective, multicenter analysis.
Jaroslav Presl, Martin Varga, Christof Mittermair, Stefan Mitterwallner, Michael Weitzendorfer, Ana Gabersek, Kurosch Borhanian, Andreas Heuberger, Helmut Weiss, Klaus Emmanuel, Burkhard von Rahden, Oliver Owen Koch
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引用次数: 6
Abstract
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.
期刊介绍：
The journal European Surgery – Acta Chirurgica Austriaca focuses on general surgery, endocrine surgery, thoracic surgery, heart and vascular surgery. Special features include new surgical and endoscopic techniques such as minimally invasive surgery, robot surgery, and advances in surgery-related biotechnology and surgical oncology.
The journal especially addresses benign and malignant esophageal diseases, i.e. achalasia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, Barrett’s esophagus, and esophageal adenocarcinoma. In keeping with modern healthcare requirements, the journal’s scope includes inter- and multidisciplinary disease management (diagnosis, therapy and surveillance).
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