The Impact of Early COVID-19 Pandemic on the Presentation and Management of Urinary Calculi Across the Globe: A Systematic Review.

It is acknowledged that the COVID-19 pandemic has had a major impact on health care services around the globe with possible worse outcomes. It has resulted in stretch of resources with canceled or delayed procedures. Patients with urinary calculi have also suffered the negative impact. This systematic review aims to assess the impact of the early COVID-19 pandemic on the presentation and management of urinary calculi around the globe. We reviewed the impact of early COVID-19 on the clinically important aspects of stone disease using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) methodology. We searched Medline, Embase, and Central databases using themes of COVID-19 OR Sars-Cov-2 OR pandemic OR coronavirus AND kidney stone, urinary calculi, urolithiasis, and similar allied terms. Inclusion criteria were studies with data on both pre- and COVID-19 period covering one or more of eight clinical domains. Our search returned 231 studies, after removal of duplicates, of which 18 studies were included for analysis. The number of patients presenting to hospital declined by 21%-70% at the beginning of the pandemic, whereas majority of studies reported increased associated complications. There are mixed reports in terms of delay to presentation and use of conservative management. There was a consistent trend toward reduction in elective procedures with wide variations (shockwave lithotripsy 38%-98%, percutaneous nephrolithotomy 94%-100%, and ureteroscopy 8%-98%). There was a trend toward increased nephrostomy insertion with the onset of the pandemic. This review demonstrated the differences in the number of patients presenting to hospital, complication rates, and management of urinary calculi, including surgical interventions, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It offers baseline global information that would help understand the impact of early pandemic, variations in practices, and be useful for future comparisons.