ArticleWorld journal of emergency surgery : WJES2022
Emergency surgery admissions and the COVID-19 pandemic: did the first wave really change our practice? Results of an ACOI/WSES international retrospective cohort audit on 6263 patients.
Article in World journal of emergency surgery : WJES, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Safety and feasibility of open abdomen with negative pressure therapy in major liver trauma: a retrospective bicenter study.Langenbeck's archives of surgery · 2025Article
- Mild acute biliary pancreatitis: still a surgical disease. A post-hoc analysis of the MANCTRA-1 international study.European journal of trauma and emergency surgery : official publication of the European Trauma Society · 2025Article
- [Severe cholecystitis during the COVID-19 pandemic : Influence of the COVID-19 pandemic on the frequency of surgery and outcome for elective and emergency cholecystectomy: a monocentric retrospective cohort analysis].Chirurgie (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2024Article
- Prognostic factors and predictive models in hot gallbladder surgery: A prospective observational study in a high-volume center.Annals of hepato-biliary-pancreatic surgery · 2024Article
- Navigating appendicitis care during the Covid-19 pandemic: a retrospective cohort study in China.BMC surgery · 2024Article
- How the COVID-19 pandemic affected the severity and clinical presentation of diverticulitis.Intestinal research · 2023Article
- How future surgery will benefit from SARS-COV-2-related measures: a SPIGC survey conveying the perspective of Italian surgeons.Updates in surgery · 2023Article
- Are Antibiotics the New Appendectomy?Cureus · 2023Review
- Article
- Is it possible to predict the severity of acute appendicitis? Reliability of predictive models based on easily available blood variables.World journal of emergency surgery : WJES · 2023Article
- Bariatric surgery: to bleed or not to bleed? This is the question.BMC surgery · 2022Article
- Two years later: Is the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic still having an impact on emergency surgery? An international cross-sectional survey among WSES members.World journal of emergency surgery : WJES · 2022Article
- Surgical safety in the COVID-19 era: present and future considerations.Annals of surgical treatment and research · 2022Review
- The weekend effect on the provision of Emergency Surgery before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: case-control analysis of a retrospective multicentre database.World journal of emergency surgery : WJES · 2022Article
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11 authors.
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Abstract
introductionThe COVID-19 pandemic is having a deep impact on emergency surgical services, with a significant reduction of patients admitted into emergency surgical units world widely. Reliable figures of this reduction have not been produced yet. Our international audit aimed at giving a precise snapshot of the absolute and relative changes of emergency surgical admissions at the outbreak of the pandemic. MATERIALS AND
methodsDatasets of patients admitted as general surgical emergencies into 45 internationally distributed emergency surgical units during the months of March and April 2020 (Covid-19 pandemic outbreak) were collected and compared with those of patients admitted into the same units during the months of March and April 2019 (pre-Covid-19). Primary endpoint was to evaluate the relative variation of the presentation symptoms and discharge diagnoses between the two study periods. Secondary endpoint was to identify the possible change of therapeutic strategy during the same two periods.
resultsForty-five centres participated sent their anonymised data to the study hub, for a total of 6263 patients. Of these, 3810 were admitted in the pre-Covid period and 2453 in the Covid period, for a 35.6% absolute reduction. The most common presentation was abdominal pain, whose incidence did not change between the two periods, but in the Covid period patients presented less frequently with anal pain, hernias, anaemia and weight loss. ASA 1 and low frailty patients were admitted less frequently, while ASA>1 and frail patients showed a relative increase. The type of surgical access did not change significantly, but lap-to-open conversion rate halved between the two study periods. Discharge diagnoses of appendicitis and diverticulitis reduced significantly, while bowel ischaemia and perianal ailments had a significant relative increase.
conclusionsOur audit demonstrates a significant overall reduction of emergency surgery admissions at the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic with a minimal change of the proportions of single presentations, diagnoses and treatments. These findings may open the door to new ways of managing surgical emergencies without engulfing the already busy hospitals.
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