- Published
- 02 September 2021
- Journal article
Neurosurgery activity levels in the United Kingdom and republic of Ireland during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic–a retrospective cross-sectional cohort study
- Authors
-
- Source
- British Journal of Neurosurgery
Abstract
The impact of Covid-19 on surgical patients worldwide has been substantial. In the United Kingdom (UK) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI), the first wave of the pandemic occurred in March 2020. The aims of this study were to: (1) evaluate the volume of neurosurgical operative activity levels, Covid-19 infection rate and mortality rate in April 2020 with a retrospective cross-sectional cohort study conducted across 16 UK and RoI neurosurgical centres, and (2) compare patient outcomes in a single institution in April–June 2020 with a comparative cohort in 2019. Across the UK and RoI, 818 patients were included. There were 594 emergency and 224 elective operations. The incidence rate of Covid-19 infection was 2.6% (21/818). The overall mortality rate in patients with a Covid-19 infection was 28.6% (6/21). In the single centre cohort analysis, an overall reduction in neurosurgical operative activity by 65% was observed between 2020 (n = 304) and 2019 (n = 868). The current and future impact on UK neurosurgical operative activity has implications for service delivery and neurosurgical training.
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Cite as
Richardson, G., Islim, A., Albanese, E., Ahmed, A., Aly, A., Ammar, A., Amoo, M., Bhatt, H., Bodkin, P., Coulter, I., Corr, P., Elmaadawi, I., Elserius, A., Fountain, D., George, K., Gillespie, C., Goel, A., Grundy, P., Gurusinghe, N., Hartley, J., Hasan, M., Javadpour, M., Kalra, N., Mallucci, C., Millward, C., Mohamed, B., Mohamed, S., Mustafa, M., Nannapaneni, R., Nolan, D., Patel, U., Piper, R., Rajaraman, C., Raza-Knight, S., Rehman, K., Rominiyi, O., Sage, W., Sharouf, F., Sinha, S., Sitaraman, M., Smith, S., Solth, A., Stokes, S., Taweel, B., Tyagi, A., Zaben, M., Jenkinson, M. & Prasad, M. 2021, 'Neurosurgery activity levels in the United Kingdom and republic of Ireland during the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic–a retrospective cross-sectional cohort study', British Journal of Neurosurgery, 38(4), pp. 998-1003. https://doi.org/10.1080/02688697.2021.1968341