Assessment of trends and clinical presentation in the emergency department of patients with renal colic during the COVID-19 pandemic era

Comparison of Management and Outcomes of Symptomatic Urolithiasis During the COVID-19 Pandemic to a Comparative Cohort

“…This contrasts with Antonucci et al, who found a higher rate of complications (20.4% versus 10.9%) for patients who presented during the pandemic 9 . However, our study is similar to those by Carrion et al and Flammia et al which also demonstrated no significant differences in the rate of complications 12 , 16 .…”

“…While our results are similar to a study from three centers in Spain and Italy which found no significant differences in the type of therapy 12 , a few other studies have found differences in the management of urolithiasis patients during the COVID-19 pandemic. A study by Gul et al which evaluated 149 patients with ureteral stones between March and June 2020 in a Turkish hospital found a higher rate of patients who received nephrostomy tubes (37.2% versus 0.9%) and lower rates of ureteral stent placement (34.3% versus 43.9%) during the pandemic 11 .…”

“…The EHN experienced a 48.33% reduction in patient presentations to the ED with symptomatic urolithiasis during the surge of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the year before. This 48.33% reduction is much higher than reported in the literature [9][10][11][12], demonstrating the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on our community. Patients were likely hesitant to present to the ED due to fears of contracting COVID-19, whereas hospital resources gravitated towards treating COVID-19 patients [13].…”

“…In addition to evaluating patients at a hospital which was impacted greatly by COVID-19, another strength of this study is that includes a total of 408 patients including 139 that presented during the pandemic, which makes this one of the larger cohorts of symptomatic urolithiasis patients studied during the pandemic. Additionally, we decided to incorporate four months of data as we believed that this would provide us with a more accurate analysis of how these patients fared compared to previous studies that looked at one-to-two-month time periods 9 , 10 , 12 .…”

Adequacy of physician clinical rounds and nursing care elements for non-COVID-19 infected patients admitted during the COVID-19 pandemic

“…Although some hospitals were converted to receive COVID-19 infected patients only, many continued to admit both COVID-19 infected and non-infected patients. The usual workflow and treatment protocols and procedures for non COVID 19 infected patients were modified in many disciplines to minimize exposure to COVID-19 patients [11] , [12] , [13] , [14] , [15] , [16] , [17] , [18] , [19] , [20] , [21] , [22] .…”