The following is a summary of “A retrospective single-institution review of the impact of COVID-19 on the severity of biliary disease,” published in the FEBRUARY 2023 issue of Surgery by Cochrun, et al.

For a study, researchers sought to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the incidence and complexity of biliary disease, specifically emergency cholecystectomy. 

To do this, they reviewed the data of 912 patients who underwent cholecystectomy at the institution from February 2019 to February 2021. Researchers compared patients before and after the onset of the pandemic and used a Cochran-Armitage test for trend to evaluate the temporal impact of COVID-19 on emergency presentation and gallbladder disease complexity.

Out of 442 pre-pandemic and 470 pandemic patients, the demographics were not significantly different. They found that COVID-19 had a significant impact on the incidence of emergency presentation (43.2% vs. 56.8%, P=<0.01), cholecystitis (53.2% vs. 61.8%; P=<0.01), and gangrenous cholecystitis (2.8% vs. 6.1%; P=<0.01) but did not significantly impact clinical outcomes. Both groups had similar baseline characteristics.

The results suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic increased the incidence and complexity of gallbladder disease, which may have broader implications for other diseases affected by COVID-19.

Source: americanjournalofsurgery.com/article/S0002-9610(22)00617-1/fulltext