Appendectomy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a multicenter ambispective cohort study by the Italian Society of Endoscopic Surgery and new technologies (the CRAC study) - Summary - MDSpire
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Appendectomy during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: a multicenter ambispective cohort study by the Italian Society of Endoscopic Surgery and new technologies (the CRAC study)
To analyze emergent surgical appendectomies during the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy and compare them to the same period of the previous year, focusing specifically on emergent cases.
Key Findings:
A 31% decrease in appendectomy rates was observed during the pandemic (546 in 2020 vs 791 in 2019), indicating a significant shift in surgical management.
Patients in 2020 had a higher severity of appendicitis compared to 2019, indicated by the AIR score, which suggests a trend towards more complex cases.
The study included 1337 patients who met the inclusion criteria, providing a robust dataset for analysis.
Interpretation:
The reduction in appendectomies during the pandemic suggests a shift towards non-operative management, potentially leading to more severe cases requiring surgery, which may impact future surgical practices.
Limitations:
The study is retrospective and may be subject to selection bias, which could affect the reliability of the findings.
Data collection relied on voluntary participation from surgical units, which may affect generalizability and the representativeness of the sample.
Conclusion:
The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the management of acute appendicitis, leading to fewer surgeries and potentially more complex cases, highlighting the need for adaptive surgical strategies in future crises.
FOXC1 duplications were the second most common monogenic finding among genetically solved juvenile open-angle glaucoma cases in one registry, supporting the use of copy-number variant analysis in early-onset glaucoma testing.
