Emergency surgical presentations COVID

Audio Transcript Auto-generated

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  Hi, My name is Rasheed and Ali and I'm going

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  to talk to you about how the Covid 19 pandemic

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  has affected emergency presentations to a busy surgical emergency unit

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  in Oxford.

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  In March 2020 national lockdown and social restrictions were introduced

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  to reduce the burden on emergency services.

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  Furthermore, guidance released by the royal colleges advocated conservative management

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  for acute surgical conditions such as curly cystitis and appendicitis.

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  This service evaluation aimed to evaluate whether the COVID 19

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  pandemic had an effect on emergency general surgical presentations and

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  operations and to determine whether the rate of surgical intervention

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  changed. Patient presenting after the national lockdown between March and

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  April 2020 were retrospectively identified and compared to the same

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  period in 2019, we found that emergency presentations reduced by

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  38% and operations performed reduced by 44% in 2020.

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  However, the proportion of admissions requiring an operation remained the

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  same at approximately one in four.

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  Whilst we performed 100 and 46 fewer operations, there was

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  a significantly increased number of laparotomy is performed in 2020

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  with one in five operations being performed.

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  Being a laparotomy in comparison to one and 10 operations

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  in 2019 appendectomies were performed at the same rate, whereas

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  Hot Curtis mastectomies, hernias and abscess drainage reduced to summarize.

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  There was an absolute reduction in both emergency operations and

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  presentations following lockdown.

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  This reduction could be accounted for by decreased presentations of

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  non surgical abdominal pain.

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  However, more critically unwell patients presented during this period as

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  indicated by the increased number of emergency laparotomy, these thank

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  you very much.