gms | German Medical Science

Objective: The coronavirus pandemic due to SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) is posing unprecedented challenges to health care systems around the globe. Consequently, various lockdown scenarios have been politically imposed to get control over the spread of this disease. We examined the impact of the lockdown situation on the number of neurosurgical emergency patients admitted to our tertiary care center with a catchment area of approximately 2.2 million inhabitants in the south of Germany to ensure adequate neurosurgical emergency care during a pandemic lockdown.

Methods: All emergency admissions (with consecutive inpatient treatment) to the Department of Neurosurgery at the University Medical Center Regensburg, Germany, between 1 March and 8 May (69 days) of the years 2018, 2019, and 2020 were retrospectively identified and reviewed for this study. Demographic data, diagnoses, urgency of surgery, and duration of the journey to the emergency room were examined.

Results: Between 1 March and 8 May 2020, 59 emergency patients were neurosurgically treated at our department. Compared to 2018 and 2019, emergency admissions in 2020 had thus declined by 37.2% and 27.1%, respectively. The decline especially concerned non-traumatic spinal cases but also patients with other neurosurgical diagnoses such as intracranial hemorrhage. Evaluation of the overall disease severity of admitted patients by means of the urgency of surgery showed no difference between the baseline years and the lockdown period.

Conclusion: Our findings are in line with other observational studies of neurosurgical, neurological and cardiological centers in Europe that have described a drop in emergency cases. The reasons for this drop that seems to affect various medical fields and countries across Europe are still unidentified. Morbidity and mortality rates are still unknown, and efforts should be made to facilitate neurosurgical emergency care during a pandemic lockdown.