How emergency surgery has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cohort study

Various surgical societies constantly update their recommendations in order to adapt surgical activity on current Pandemic conditions. The aim of this study is to analyze how hospitalizations and emergency operations have changed in our Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences in the Hospital of Foggia during covid-19 pandemic.

Our cohort-study was conducted by analyzing two groups of patients admitted to the Department of Medical and Surgical Sciences of the Hospital of Foggia: those admitted during the no-covid period from March 09th, 2019 to May 09th, 2019 and those during the covid period from March 09th, 2020 to May 09th, 2020.

A total of 750 patients admitted during the no-covid period of 2019 and 171 during the covid period of 2020, of these 222 were emergency admission during 2019 and 97 during 2020, 528 were elective admission during 2019 and 74 during 2020. Of the emergency admissions (222 during 2019 and 97 during 2020), 91 were operated during the no covid period in 2019 and 52 during the covid period in 2020. The mean Mannheim Peritonitis Index Score, that is a scoring system used in peritonitis which is simple and cost-effective, were 15.6 during the no covid period of 2019 and 22.2 during the covid period of 2020. We observed 29 post-operative complications during 2019 and 26 during 2020.

Contraction of admissions for urgent and emergent conditions in the first period of lockdown has been followed from some positive effects as well as aggravating consequences.