2nd Department of Ophthalmology, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Papageorgiou General Hospital, Thessaloniki, Greece.
Clin Exp Optom. 2021 Aug;104(6):705-710. doi: 10.1080/08164622.2021.1880866. Epub 2021 Feb 28.
In the last months, the whole world is dealing with an unprecedented public health crisis due to COVID-19 outbreak. Consequently, many governments have implemented lockdowns on a national level, affecting, among others, ophthalmic surgical practice in a globe scale.
The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of surgical theatre lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic on the surgical performance of cataract surgeons.
Intraoperative complications and surgical time of the first 160 cataract surgeries performed by eight consultants (20 cases each) after a two-month lockdown were recorded and analysed in a cross-sectional study. The results were plotted against the last 30 cases of each surgeon before the implementation of the lockdown (240 cases). Cataract surgeons were asked to rate their subjective perspective and difficulties faced after re-opening through a questionnaire.
The average duration of all surgeries after the lockdown was 19.1 ± 6.2 minutes showing a 14% increase compared to the one before the lockdown (16.8 ± 5.1 minutes, p = 0.0001). The complications rate was 2.09% (5/240 cases) before the abstention and 3.12% (5/160 cases) after the abstention not yielding any statistically significant difference (p = 0.74). When complicated surgeries were excluded from the analysis, surgical time was still higher after the lockdown (18.9 ± 5.9 minutes) than before (16.6 ± 5.0 minutes, p < 0.0001). 37.5% of consultants (3/8) stated that the two-month abstention from cataract surgeries has affected their surgical skills somewhat or a lot, while 62.5% (5/8) reported being more careful in their first cases after the lockdown. Most complications occurred in the hands of one surgeon who stated to be very anxious upon restart.
The operating theatres' lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic did not seem to affect the intraoperative complications rate in cataract surgery. A slight increase of surgical duration was noted, while most surgeons reported being more careful upon restart.
在过去的几个月里，由于 COVID-19 爆发，整个世界都在应对一场前所未有的公共卫生危机。因此，许多国家政府在全国范围内实施了封锁，这对全球范围内的眼科手术实践产生了影响。
本研究旨在评估由于 COVID-19 大流行导致手术剧院封锁对白内障手术医生手术表现的影响。
在一项横断面研究中，记录并分析了八位顾问（每位顾问进行 20 例）在两个月的封锁后进行的前 160 例白内障手术的术中并发症和手术时间。将结果与封锁实施前每位医生的最后 30 例（240 例）进行比较。白内障手术医生被要求通过问卷调查对重新开放后的主观看法和遇到的困难进行评分。
封锁后的所有手术平均持续时间为 19.1±6.2 分钟，比封锁前的 16.8±5.1 分钟增加了 14%（p=0.0001）。封锁前的并发症发生率为 2.09%（240 例中有 5 例），封锁后的并发症发生率为 3.12%（160 例中有 5 例），无统计学差异（p=0.74）。当排除复杂手术进行分析时，封锁后的手术时间仍然高于封锁前（18.9±5.9 分钟比 16.6±5.0 分钟，p<0.0001）。37.5%（3/8）的顾问表示，两个月的白内障手术暂停对他们的手术技能有一定程度或很大程度的影响，而 62.5%（5/8）的顾问报告说在封锁后第一次手术时更加小心。大多数并发症发生在一位非常焦虑的外科医生手中，他在重启时报告说感到非常焦虑。
由于 COVID-19 大流行导致的手术剧院封锁似乎并没有影响白内障手术中的术中并发症发生率。手术时间略有延长，而大多数外科医生在重新开始时表示更加小心。
