Resumption of elective colorectal surgery during COVID-19 and risk of death

Abstract

The Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland has recently released recommendations for re-starting elective colorectal surgery to address the concerns that significant numbers of patients worldwide have been deferred during this pandemic. It is a credit to the speciality that most units have managed to continue with urgent cancer surgery through the pandemic, with leading units undertaking four to five urgent cases per week. Despite this there is now a need to accommodate other patient groups who need colorectal surgery, such as those with inflammatory bowel disease and others with benign colorectal conditions who have been placed on hold. Patients are anxious about timely widening of services to reduce waiting time, and there is a backlog for surgeons trying to serve this need in an already bulging set of waiting lists; meanwhile, stakeholders are concerned about the reduction in clinical activity.

Rights

This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: McCarthy, K., Myint, P.K., Moug, S., Pearce, L., Braude, P., Vilches‐Moraga, A., Hewitt, J., Carter, B. and (2020), Resumption of elective colorectal surgery during COVID‐19 and risk of death. Colorectal Dis, 22: 1026-1027., which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1111/codi.15282. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.

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Identifiers

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1111/codi.15282

Repository URI

https://hdl.handle.net/2164/16937