• J Clin Neurosci · Oct 2020

    Collateral damage caused by COVID-19: Change in volume and spectrum of neurosurgery patients.

    • Nishant Goyal, Tejas Venkataram, Vineet Singh, and Jitender Chaturvedi.
    • Department of Neurosurgery, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Veerbhadra Road, Rishikesh, Uttarakhand 249203, India. Electronic address: drnishantgoyal@gmail.com.
    • J Clin Neurosci. 2020 Oct 1; 80: 156-161.

    BackgroundThere has been a dramatic change in the pattern of patients being seen in hospitals and surgeries performed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The objective of this study is to study the change in the volume and spectrum of surgeries performed during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic compared to pre-COVID-19 era.MethodsDetails of all patients who were operated under department of neurosurgery at our institute since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in India were collected and compared to the same time period last year. The demographic profile, diagnosis, surgery performed, type of surgery (routine/emergency, cranial/spinal and major/minor) in these two groups were compared. They were further categorized into various categories [neuro-oncology (brain and spine tumors), neuro-trauma (head injury and spinal trauma), congenital cases, degenerative spine, neuro-vascular, CSF diversion procedures, etc.] and compared between the two groups.ResultsOur study showed a drastic fall (52.2%) in the number of surgeries performed during the pandemic compared to pre-COVID era. 11.3% of patients operated during COVID-19 pandemic were non-emergent surgeries compared to 57.7% earlier (p = 0.000). There was increase in proportion of minor cases from 28.8% to 41.5% (p = 0.106). The proportion of spinal cases decreased from 27.9% to 11.3% during the COVID-19 pandemic (p = 0.043).ConclusionsThe drastic decrease in the number of surgeries performed will result in large backlog of patients waiting for 'elective' surgery. There is a risk of these patients presenting at a later stage with progressed disease and the best way forward would be to resume work with necessary precautions and universal effective COVID-19 testing.Copyright © 2020 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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