Pulmonary embolism during the COVID‐19 pandemic: Decline in diagnostic procedures and incidence at a university hospital
Stephan Nopp, Karin Janata‐Schwatczek, Helmut Prosch, Ihor Shulym, Oliver Königsbrügge, Ingrid Pabinger, Cihan Ay
Abstract
BACKGROUND: The COVID-19 pandemic has focused medical attention on treating affected patients and protecting others from infection. However, concerns have been raised regarding the pandemic´s impact and associated containment measures (eg curfew, lockdown) on non-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)-related acute medical diseases. OBJECTIVES: To investigate changes in the incidence of pulmonary embolism (PE) during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the period before the pandemic and reference periods in previous years. METHODS: In this single-center study, we explored all diagnostic imaging tests performed for suspected PE between weeks 1 and 17 of the years 2018, 2019, and 2020. Incidence of PE (ie, primary outcome) was analyzed. Secondary outcomes included number of imaging tests for suspected PE. RESULTS: = .002). CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrates that the COVID-19 pandemic has an impact on non-COVID-19-related acute diseases as shown by the decline in incidence of PE and imaging procedures for diagnostic workup. Further studies from other hospitals are needed to confirm our findings.