SynthesisAnnals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England2026
The impact of COVID-19 on inflammatory bowel disease surgery: a systematic review.
Synthesis in Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
introductionThe COVID-19 pandemic caused a significant disruption to the delivery of surgical services. Guidance prioritising life-saving and cancer surgery was issued. Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) often requires considered, timely surgery, which may have not been feasible under the conditions imposed by the pandemic. This systematic review aims to quantify the impact of COVID-19 on IBD surgery and assess the safety of performing such surgery.
methodsA systematic review of MEDLINE, Embase and Web of Science was performed. Studies that included a prepandemic and a pandemic cohort for comparison and reported on numbers of IBD surgeries or postoperative outcomes following IBD surgery were included. Heterogeneity of included studies precluded any meta-analyses.
findingsIn total, 1,220 titles were screened and 13 were included in the final review. All were cohort studies other than one case-control study. A total of 1,673,282 and 1,445,971 patients were included in the prepandemic and pandemic cohorts, respectively. Rates of elective surgery during the pandemic varied from a 66% reduction to a 9.66% increase and emergency surgery varied from no difference to an 18% reduction. Urgent surgery in IBD inpatients appears to be unaffected. Postoperative outcomes were not shown to be negatively impacted by resource limitations.
conclusionsThe COVID-19 pandemic affected IBD surgical services considerably; however, those who did undergo surgery during this period do not appear to have been at an increased risk of adverse outcomes. Further work is required to describe the long-term impacts of these cancellations on IBD services and patient morbidity.
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