Department of Pediatrics, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea.
J Korean Med Sci. 2022 Feb 28;37(8):e60. doi: 10.3346/jkms.2022.37.e60.
Intussusception refers to the invagination of a part of the intestine into itself. The exact cause for this condition is unknown in most cases. The active implementation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) infection control guidelines has reduced the spread of COVID-19 and the incidence of other infectious diseases in children. The current study aimed to identify changes in pediatric intussusception and infectious diseases after the implementation of infection control guidelines and confirm the association between intussusception and contagious diseases.
We analyzed the electronic medical records of pediatric patients diagnosed with intussusception from seven hospitals in Korea between January 2017 and December 2020. We used open data from the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency to investigate changes in infectious diseases over the same period.
Altogether, we evaluated 390 children with intussusception. There was a statistically significant decrease in the incidence of monthly visits with intussusception in the COVID-19 period group (9.0 vs. 3.5, < 0.001). When the monthly incidence of infectious diseases was compared between the pre-COVID-19 and the COVID-19 periods, a statistically significant decrease in respiratory viruses (7979.0 vs. 815.2, < 0.001), enterovirus infection (262.2 vs. 6.6, < 0.001), and viral enteritis (916.2 vs. 197.8, < 0.001) were confirmed in the COVID-19 period. Through interrupted time series analysis, it was confirmed that the incidence of intussusception and viral infectious diseases have drastically decreased since March 2020, when COVID-19 infection control guidelines were actively implemented.
We confirmed that implementing infection control guidelines during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a decrease in intussusception and viral infectious diseases. Through this result, it was possible to indirectly confirm the existing hypothesis that viral infections play a significant role in the pathophysiologic mechanism of intussusception.
肠套叠是指部分肠管嵌入自身。这种情况的确切原因在大多数情况下并不清楚。积极实施 2019 年冠状病毒病（COVID-19）感染控制指南已降低了 COVID-19 及儿童其他传染病的传播。本研究旨在确定实施感染控制指南后儿科肠套叠和传染病的变化，并确认肠套叠与传染病之间的关联。
我们分析了韩国 7 家医院 2017 年 1 月至 2020 年 12 月期间诊断为肠套叠的儿科患者的电子病历。我们使用韩国疾病控制和预防机构的公开数据来研究同期传染病的变化。
共评估了 390 例肠套叠患儿。在 COVID-19 期间组，肠套叠每月就诊的发生率呈统计学显著下降（9.0 比 3.5，<0.001）。比较 COVID-19 前和 COVID-19 期间每月传染病的发生率时，呼吸道病毒（7979.0 比 815.2，<0.001）、肠道病毒感染（262.2 比 6.6，<0.001）和病毒性肠炎（916.2 比 197.8，<0.001）明显下降。通过中断时间序列分析，确认自 2020 年 3 月积极实施 COVID-19 感染控制指南以来，肠套叠和病毒性传染病的发病率急剧下降。
我们证实，在 COVID-19 大流行期间实施感染控制指南导致肠套叠和病毒性传染病减少。通过这一结果，可以间接地证实现有的假设，即病毒感染在肠套叠的病理生理机制中起重要作用。
