The effect of Covid-19 on Emergency Surgical Cases. Data From a High-Volume City.

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Objective COVID -19 placed a tremendous and unforeseen burden on the health system worldwide. In addition to the general surgery practice, the approach to emergency surgery cases, and patients’ admissions to the hospitals were also seriously affected by this unexpected consequence. Herein we aim to pay attention to the notable decrease in cases requiring urgent surgical intervention in our city and to try to explain this upshot. Methods In this multicenter retrospective study, emergency general surgical interventions performed in the 3rd and 2nd stage private and public hospitals, before the pandemic (January 2020- February 2020), and acute phase of the pandemic (Mid-March 2020 - Mid-May 2020) in Sakarya province were compared. Results The distribution of patients before pandemic by gender was 53.1% in male patients, 46.9% in female patients, while 61.6% in male, and 38.4% in female patients during the pandemic respectively. The mean age of patients was 54.72±3.65 before pandemic and 38.54±2.32 during the pandemic, and there was a statistically significant difference in terms of the age distribution of patients undergoing emergency surgery (p<0.05). During the two months before the pandemic, a total of 290 emergency surgeries were performed, while in the acute pandemic period, 164 emergency operations were performed in the same time interval. There was a statistically significant decrease in the number of patients undergoing emergency surgery during the pandemic period compared to non-pandemic (p= 0.012). Conclusion Although the causes for the decrease in cases requiring emergency surgery may be partially defined. However, the disease groups whose alteration reasons cannot be explained at the moment may need further detailed strategic preparation in order not to encounter undesired results in the future.