Acute effect of COVID-19 pandemic on urological consultations and urological surgery

Abstract

Objective: Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has greatly affected the clinical functioning of all sub-specialties, including urology. Clinicians have also been affected by this sudden chaotic process to a certain extent. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the effect of pandemic period on urological consultations and urological surgery in the acute phase of our country. Material and Methods: This retrospective study was designed after the approval of our hospital’s local ethics committee (decision number dated 22.07.2020: 2020/0458) was obtained. In the first 4 weeks after the first case in our country, the data of the patients who were consulted to the Urology clinic from the emergency service and other clinics in our hospital, which is a tertiary healthcare facility (Group 1), and patients in the same period of 2019 (group 2) were retrospectively collected. The demographic characteristics of the patients, specific triage evaluations for the pandemic, reasons for consultation and results were analyzed in detail. Results: Of the total 377 patients, 123 (32.6%) were in Group 1, and 254 (67.4%) were in Group 2. While there was a similar distribution in the number of weekly consultations in group 2, a statistically significant decrease was observed in the second and third weeks in Group 1 and an increase in the fourth week (p = 0.025). Ninety-three patients (75.6%) in Group 1 and 180 patients (70.9%) in Group 2 were consulted from the emergency service (p = 0.116). The two most common reasons for consultation were urinary infections and urolithiasis in Group 1; urolithiasis and hematuria in Group 2 (p = 0.027). While the rate of urological surgical intervention was 24.4% in Group 1; it was 37.8% in Group 2 (p = 0.010). Conclusion: The difficulty of the COVID-19 outbreak for clinicians has been to strike a balance between providing the most appropriate treatment while avoiding contamination for themselves and their patients. This balance in urology practice has emerged as a decrease in the rate of consultations resulting in surgery. Keywords: consultation, coronavirus, COVID-19, pandemic, urological surgery