Impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on the glaucoma surgical waiting list

Abstract

AbstractPurposeThe purpose is to study the impact caused by the pandemic situation (COVID‐19) on the waiting time for glaucoma surgery and to study the differences between the severity of glaucoma according to the affectation of the visual field in patients included in this surgical waiting list.MethodsFor this, a retrospective random sampling analytical study has been carried out. The cases are the patients included in the glaucoma surgical waiting list of the Toledo Hospital Complex in the pandemic period, from January 2020 to May 2021; and controls are the patients included from July 2018 to December 2019. A total of 99 patients have been recruited. The variables that have been calculated are: the surgical waiting time, the severity of the glaucoma based on the affectation of the visual field through the Modified glaucoma Staging System, age, gender, type of glaucoma, affected eye, need for reoperation and the number of active ingredients needed pre‐ and post‐surgery.The hypothesis contrast test used for ordinal qualitative variables was the Mann‐Whitney Test, for continuous quantitative variables the Student's t Test for independent data, and the Chi2 Test for dichotomous qualitative variables.ResultsAs a result, there are statistically significant differences (p = 0.045) in the degree of severity of glaucoma measured with the Modified glaucoma Staging System, glaucoma being less severe in the group affected by the pandemic. Significant differences have also been found in age, the 2020–2021 group being younger (72.33 ± 10.8 years versus 67.64 ± 11.26 years). There are no statistically significant differences about the need of post‐surgery needling (19.2% in 2018–2019 group versus 17% in 2020–2021 group (p = 0.776)). There are no statistically significant differences in the waiting time for gluacoma surgery between the two groups (68 ± 40.4 days in 2018–2019 versus 78.47 ± 74.35 days in 2020–2021 (p = 0.380).ConclusionsThe impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic seems to have caused that younger patients and patients with less visual field involvement undergo earlier surgery, but it is possible that the onset of progression and the difficulty in check‐ups have led to the need for surgery. On the other hand, it has been possible to maintain the waiting time for surgery similar to the period without a pandemic.