The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Hernia Surgery: The South-East Scotland Experience

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00064203%3A_____%2F22%3A10448777" target="_blank" >RIV/00064203:_____/22:10448777 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=lwgSCD_Bwv" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=lwgSCD_Bwv</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.29532" target="_blank" >10.7759/cureus.29532</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Hernia Surgery: The South-East Scotland Experience

Original language description

Aim The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in a lockdown in South East Scotland on 23 March 2020. This had an impact on the volume of benign elective surgery able to be undertaken. The degree to which this reduced hernia surgery was unknown. The aim of this study was to review the hernia surgery workload in the Lothian region of Scotland and assess the impact of COVID-19 on hernia surgery.Methods The Lothian Surgical Audit database was used to identify all elective and emergency hernia operations over a six-month period from 23 March 2020 and for the same time period in 2019. Data were collected on age, gender, anatomical location of the hernia, hernia repair technique, and whether elective or emergency operation. Statistical analysis was performed using the chi-squared test in R-Studio, with a p-value of &lt;0.05 accepted as statistically significant.Results The total number of hernia repairs reduced considerably between 2019 and 2020 (570 vs 149). The majority of this can be explained by a decrease in elective operating (488 vs 87), with the percentage of elective repairs reducing significantly from 85.6% to 58.4% (p&lt;0.001). The inguinal hernia subgroup had a 24% rise in emergency operations from 21 to 26 operations, despite a reduction from 270 to 84 total inguinal repairs. There were just two elective hernia repairs carried out in the first three months of the 2020 study period (5.6% of all operations for April-June) compared to 265 (87.7%) for the same period in 2019 (p&lt;0.001). No statistically significant differences were observed in the rates of laparoscopic versus open operating techniques across the two study periods on any analysis. The age and gender of the patients were similar over the two time periods.Conclusion The COVID-19 pandemic led to a marked reduction in the number of elective hernia repairs (especially incisional hernia surgery), with the effect most pronounced over the first three months of lockdown. Despite an overall reduction in total emergency operative figures, possibly due to more widespread use of non -operative strategies, there was still an increase in emergency inguinal hernia repairs during the lockdown. Further studies are needed to evaluate if the delays to elective operating will result in a long-term increase in the rates of emergency presentation.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

30212 - Surgery

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Cureus [online]

ISSN

2168-8184

e-ISSN

2168-8184

Volume of the periodical

14

Issue of the periodical within the volume

9

Country of publishing house

US - UNITED STATES

Number of pages

6

Pages from-to

e29532

UT code for WoS article

000862785700015

EID of the result in the Scopus database

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