The effects of COVID-19 pandemic on patients with acute appendicitis

BACKGROUND: The effects of the COVID-19 infection on the world's health system began to be reported in a short time, with the spread of the infection all over the world and it gained a global acceptance as a pandemic. It was predicted that patients who require urgent surgical procedures may not be able to access appropriate treatment during this period and may suffer from this process. In this process, we planned to report the effects of the pandemic process to this patient group by evaluating patients with acute appendicitis, which is the most common cause of acute abdomen among general surgery emergencies. METHODS: In our study, we compared the patients who applied to the Training and Research Hospital we collaborated, whose clinics were compatible with acute appendicitis, between March 11, 2020, and May 21, 2020, with those applied within the same time period with the year before. We evaluated clinical and pathological findings of the patients and the treatment applied. RESULTS: In this study, there were 103 patients diagnosed with acute appendicitis before pandemic and 61 in pandemic period. We found that during the pandemic period, patients with acute appendicitis were admitted to the hospital less often, and in a later period, and more complicated clinical pictures were determined. Complicated appendicitis patients were higher in pandemic period compared with previous year (33.96% vs. 8.00% of patients, respectively; p<0.05). CONCLUSION: We emphasized that diseases that need to be treated urgently should not be left behind during the pandemic. Furthermore, we shared our clinical practice to ensure early discharge of patients with acute appendicitis during the pandemic process.