Ng Kei Shing, Vardhanabhuti Varut
Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2021 Nov 17;8:704515. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.704515. eCollection 2021.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to healthcare worldwide. In this study, we aim to quantify its impact of chest related radiological procedures over the different waves of local infection in Hong Kong across the territory's public hospitals. This was an observational study enrolling patients between January 2017 and December 2020. Consecutive population-based chest radiographs, CT, US, and interventional radiology (IR) procedures were obtained public hospitals across Hong Kong. A significant reduction of 10.0% ( < 0.001) in the total number of chest radiographs was observed. Non-significant reduction of 2.5% ( = 0.0989), 39.1% ( = 0.2135), and 1.9% ( = 0.8446) was observed for Chest CT, Chest US, and Chest IR procedures, respectively, in 2020 compared to the projected values. Although, it was anticipated that there would be a significant impact to health services caused by the pandemic, for chest-related investigations in Hong Kong, the impact was not as severe. Quantitative analysis could help with future planning and public health decision making.
2019冠状病毒病疫情给全球医疗保健带来了重大干扰。在本研究中，我们旨在量化香港公立医院在本地不同感染波次期间，其对胸部相关放射学检查的影响。这是一项观察性研究，纳入了2017年1月至2020年12月期间的患者。我们获取了香港各公立医院基于人群的连续胸部X光片、CT、超声和介入放射学（IR）检查数据。观察到胸部X光片总数显著减少了10.0%（<0.001）。与预期值相比，2020年胸部CT、胸部超声和胸部IR检查的减少幅度分别为2.5%（P = 0.0989）、39.1%（P = 0.2135）和1.9%（P = 0.8446），均无统计学意义。尽管预计疫情会对医疗服务造成重大影响，但对于香港的胸部相关检查而言，影响并不那么严重。定量分析有助于未来的规划和公共卫生决策。
