Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Cause a Delay in the Diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis?
- PDF / 234,805 Bytes
- 5 Pages / 595.276 x 790.866 pts Page_size
- 12 Downloads / 156 Views
ORIGINAL SCIENTIFIC REPORT
Did the COVID-19 Pandemic Cause a Delay in the Diagnosis of Acute Appendicitis? Sevim Turanli1 • Gamze Kiziltan1
Accepted: 10 October 2020 Ó Socie´te´ Internationale de Chirurgie 2020
Abstract Background Appendectomy for acute appendicitis remains one of the most common surgical procedures. This study aims to assess the clinical presentation and delays in diagnosing acute appendicitis during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We evaluated data of all adult patients who underwent an appendectomy at our hospital between June 1, 2019 and June 1, 2020. Demographic data, admission type to the emergency room, radiological findings, pathological findings, and hospitalization time were noted. Patients were divided into four groups of 3-month periods, pre (Groups 5, 4, 3, 2) and during the pandemic (Group 1). Hospitalization time and perforation status of each group were compared. The hospital admission type and their effect on perforation were also evaluated. Results Two hundred and fourteen patients were included; 135 patients were male, and 57 were female. The median age was 39 years. In Group 1 (pandemic period), 28.8% of patients were referred to us from pandemic hospitals. The median hospitalization time was 7.3 h before pandemics (Group 2–5), 5 h in the pandemic period (Group 1). Perforation rates were 27.8% in Group 1, 23.3% in Group 2, 16.3% in Group 3, 14.0% in Group 4, and 18.6% in Group 5 (0 = 0.58). There was no difference in the patients in Group 1 in the rate of perforated appendicitis in patients who were referred from other pandemic hospitals (29.4) and those admitted via our own emergency room (16.6%) (p = 0.27) during the pandemic period. Conclusion We did not observe any clear increase in the diagnosis of perforated appendicitis during the pandemic period, even in patients who were transferred from other hospitals.
Introduction Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a serious healthcare problem that has affected millions of people worldwide since December 2019. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic situation on March 11, 2020 [1]. Early in the pandemic, lack of knowledge about the transmission, & Gamze Kiziltan [email protected] 1
Department of Surgery, Dr. Abdurrahman Yurtaslan Ankara Oncology Education and Research Hospital, 06200 Ankara, Turkey
treatment, and prevention of the disease instilled fear among the population. Many patients in hospitals feared that they would contact the virus from patients admitted with COVID-19, and many started avoiding hospitals as much as possible. Consequently, most common medical conditions might have had a delayed diagnosis and presentation. Although the main symptoms of COVID-19 are respiratory problems, gastrointestinal symptoms like abdominal pain, nausea, and vomiting were also reported [2]. These created some confusion in the emergency rooms early in the pandemic. In surgical practice, appendicitis remains one of the major causes of acute abdominal pain in adults and one of
123
World J Surg
the most comm
Data Loading...
