Abstract
Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to healthcare worldwide. In this study, we aim to quantify its impact of chest related radiological procedures over the different waves of local infection in Hong Kong across the territory's public hospitals.Methods: This was an observational study enrolling patients between January 2017 and December 2020. Consecutive population-based chest radiographs, CT, US, and interventional radiology (IR) procedures were obtained public hospitals across Hong Kong.Results: A significant reduction of 10.0% (p < 0.001) in the total number of chest radiographs was observed. Non-significant reduction of 2.5% (p = 0.0989), 39.1% (p = 0.2135), and 1.9% (p = 0.8446) was observed for Chest CT, Chest US, and Chest IR procedures, respectively, in 2020 compared to the projected values.Conclusion: Although, it was anticipated that there would be a significant impact to health services caused by the pandemic, for chest-related investigations in Hong Kong, the impact was not as severe. Quantitative analysis could help with future planning and public health decision making.
Highlights
Significant impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was observed in the year 2020
We systematically examined territory-wide chest-related imaging investigational data in the Hong Kong public hospitals database and compare the impact in 2020 with the prior 3 years
In 2020, there were a total number of 1,751,881 chest radiographs, 99,692 chest computed tomography (CT), 121 chest US, and 2,472 chest interventional radiology (IR) procedures performed from 35, 19, 11, and 18 hospitals, respectively, across public hospitals in Hong Kong
Summary
Significant impact of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was observed in the year 2020. Medical services have been reduced or have been redirected toward caring for patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) [1]. The first local COVID-19 case in Hong Kong was reported on January 23, 2020. In terms of medical imaging, varying impacts on chest ultrasound [2] and interventional radiology [3,4,5,6] were reported globally, but few studies have examined the impact at a population level over a prolonged period. We aim to quantify its impact of chest related radiological procedures over the different waves of local infection in Hong Kong across the territory’s public hospitals
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