The COVID-19 pandemic has had indirect and deleterious effects on patient health due to interruptions to routine provision of healthcare. A recent study evaluated the impact of the pandemic on patients with peripheral vascular disease in Australia by analyzing rates of amputation, indications for amputation, and urgency of surgery in the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods.
The study found an increase in the number of amputations overall and a significant increase in major amputations during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic times. Tissue loss secondary to arterial insufficiency was an increasingly common indication for amputation that was observed in the pandemic group, indicating that disruption to revascularization likely contributed to this increase in amputations.
Researchers used the Australian Vascular Audit to capture lower-limb amputation data in Victoria, Australia, in the 22 months before and after the start of the pandemic and found that the number of amputations increased from 1,770 pre-pandemic to 1,850 during the pandemic, a 4.3 percent increase. This was largely driven by a statistically significant 19 percent increase in major amputations. The number of minor amputations remained relatively similar in the two time periods.
Amputations due to tissue loss secondary to arterial insufficiency in patients with peripheral vascular disease increased from 474 to 526, an 11 percent increase, potentially indicating disruptions to revascularization procedures contributing to the rise in amputations, according to the study. Elective and emergency surgeries fell by 14 percent and 18 percent, respectively, while semi-urgent amputations increased by 32 percent.
“This study further confirms that patients with chronic diseases are often disproportionately disadvantaged when global crises affect routine provision of healthcare and calls for better systems to be developed that can be used in such crises in the future,” the study’s authors concluded.
The open-access study, “The indirect impact of COVID-19 pandemic on lower extremity amputations–an Australian study,” was published in Vascular Health and Risk Management.
https://www.dovepress.com/the-indirect-impact-of-covid-19-pandemic-on-lower-extremity-amputation-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-VHRM