GENDER AND REGIONAL DISPARITIES IN EMERGENCY ARRHYTHMIA PROCEDURES DURING COVID-19 LOCKDOWN

Objectives: Worldwide reduction in emergency procedures has been observed during the current COVID-19 pandemic. The effects of the pandemic and its associated lockdown on arrhythmia related emergency procedures is not known. This study was done to see the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown on provision of emergency arrhythmia procedures and to identify vulnerable patient groups that may be disproportionately affected during lockdown. Methodology: Data for patients requiring emergency intracardiac devices including temporary and permanent pacemakers was collected from three public sector hospitals of Sindh, Pakistan, for the COVID-19 lockdown period of March to May 2020. This was compared to the data for the same period for 2019. Results: Patients presenting during lockdown decreased by 32.8% (from 250 to 168) compared to the same period without lockdown. The decline was across all emergency procedures considered. There was a more than fivefold reduction in the number of patients in patients from outside the metropolitan area of the hospital (64.3%) compared to those residing within the city (12.5%) (p=0.001). There was a trend showing women to be more effected, with the percentage decline in women being statistically significant in the rural setting (-93.8% vs. -52.9%, p=0.043). All age groups were equally affected (p=0.152). Conclusion: A marked reduction in the number of patients who presented for emergency intra cardiac devices and TPM procedures was seen during COVID-19 lockdown. The patients who presented from outside the city of the hospital and women in rural setting were significantly more effected.

AN ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCES AND PROBLEMS FACED BY THE DENTISTS DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC: A QUESTIONNAIRE-BASED SURVEY

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 pandemic started in December and spread around the globe in a few months. Nosocomial transmission of this virus shut down the dental clinics and creates many problems for patients. This study was designed to assess the experiences and problems faced by the dentist during the pandemic. The was a cross sectional questionnaire-based survey conducted in different dental sectors of Lahore. The questionnaire was distributed through online Microsoft form and total of seventy-eight complete responses were received out of 156 dentists contacted.69.2 % of participants reported that they stop taking appointments during the peaks of pandemic or have planned to stay at home till the end of the pandemic where 27% claimed to perform only emergency procedures. 86% of dentists reported having difficulty finding PPE and 97% had to buy it at a much higher cost. Dentists (96%) also reported that they are facing a significant decrease in income and needed some other source of income. Regarding financial issues they did not get any government support.The COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on dentistry. Most dental clinics remained closed, placing a financial burden on the dental profession. This burden was further increased as a result of the scarcity and high cost of PPE. There is a need for standardized protocols to prevent the spread of infection, and government agencies should also consider private clinics for funding and provision of low-cost PPE.

Evaluating the Importance of Patient Blood Management During COVID-19 Pandemic

: Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for blood products may decrease as the health care system shifts toward treating the increased number of patients afflicted with COVID-19 and delaying selective surgeries and emergency procedures. One of the most important problems for blood transfusion services during COVID-19 pandemic is the reduction in the number of donors and a decrease in blood stocks. This happens due to the limitations of attendance of donors in blood centers, lack of awareness, misinformation, fear of being infected while donating blood, and restricting the freedom of blood collection teams to attend public places. Blood transfusion services should be prepared and well-responded in a timely manner. In this regard, appropriate use of blood, diminishing unnecessary transfusions, and implementation of patient blood management (PBM) principles are considered as significant measurements. PBM can help maintain blood supply throughout the crisis and reduce the pressure on blood demand. As a result, blood products can be saved for patients who need it urgently. PBM focuses on the patient, as well as the conditions that make patients transfuse blood, such as blood loss, coagulopathy, platelet dysfunction, and anemia. Thus, the majority of health systems in different countries have made recommendations to the PBM in hospitals.

Study of endoscopic esophageal variceal ligation cases in Tishreen University Hospital: دراسة لحالات ربط دوالي المري تنظيرياً في مشفى تشرين الجامعي

Objective: The aim of this study is to estimate the effectiveness and complications of performing EVL in cirrhotic patients, and to assess the outcome of rebleeding events after EVL. Patients and Methods: An Observational Descriptive Study conducted for the period from January 2020 to January 2021 at Tishreen University Hospital in Lattakia- Syria, 45 Cirrhotic patients with esophageal varices who underwent 69 EVL sessions whether done as prophylactic or therapeutic followed up for three weeks. Results: The median age was 57 years, 66.70% of patients were male. The most common etiology was cryptogenic cirrhosis (40%), and 44.4% of patients had esophageal varices grade III. The most common indication for performing EVL was primary prophylaxis (46.4%). Initial control of bleeding was achieved in 95.2% of emergency procedures. The mortality rate during follow- up was 2.2%. Chest pain was the most common complication of EVL (31.9%). The incidence of re- bleeding events after EVL was 7.24%, more frequently in emergency procedures. Re- bleeding was significantly associated with alcoholic liver disease, poor liver condition (Child- Paugh C class), emergency procedures, coagulation disorders (low levels of PLT and high levels of INR) and presence of large varices (grade III and IV). Conclusion: EVL is feasible, safe, and effective for the management of esophageal varices in patients with end stage liver disease.

Quality assessment of clinical practice guidelines for perioperative care and use of GRADE: a systematic review protocol

IntroductionPerioperative care is a broad field covering an array of elective and emergency procedures. Clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) for perioperative care exist with various degrees of methodological quality. We intend to critically appraise them using AGREE II instrument and investigate the use of Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development and Evaluations (GRADE).Methods and analysisWe searched MEDLINE (Ovid), Epistemonikos, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews and PROSPERO and did not identify any similar systematic review in this area. We will search databases, repositories and websites of guideline developers and medical societies, including MEDLINE (Ovid), Embase (Ovid), DynaMed, the GIN international guideline library and registry of guidelines in development, BIGG international database of GRADE guidelines, ECRI Guideline Trust or National Institute for Clinical Evidence to identify all CPGs for perioperative care in an adult population in a general clinical setting. We will include CPGs, expert guidance, position papers, guidance documents and consensus statements published in the last 5 years by experts or international organisations that provide guidance or recommendations in the available full text with no geographical or language limitation. Excluded will be those containing only good practice statements. Two independent reviewers will perform critical appraisal using the AGREE II tool. The data presented in a narrative and tabular form will include the results of the critical appraisal for all identified CPGs for all AGREE II domains and an assessment of the use of the GRADE approach.Ethics and disseminationEthics approval is not required. We will disseminate the findings through professional networks and conference presentations and will publish the results.

P-O15 “Knife to Skin” time: The invariable variable

Background The Covid-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of healthcare globally. Theatre utilisation assumes a substantial proportion of hospital resources, creating a streamlined pathway increases efficiency and productivity. With concerns regarding aerosol generating procedures, viral transmission to health care workers in theatre and patient pathways through the hospitals the covid-19 pandemic has added another dimension to the theatre pathway. The aim of this study was to quantify the impact of Covid-19 on the “knife to skin” (KTS) time and compare it to previous historical data (HD). Methods Retrospective analysis of real time theatre data was analysed for the first 12 months of the pandemic from 11th March 2020 to 11th March 2021. To try and minimise variability between different specialities and operations we picked one operation to study: Laparoscopic cholecystectomy (LC). Historical data was also gathered from the same time frame over the last 5 years (2015-2020) for comparison. Data collected included emergency or elective, time sent for patient, anaesthetic start time, knife to skin time and duration of operation. Comparison of means were analysed by One-way ANOVA tests and Student’s T-Test. Results 399 laparoscopic cholecystectomies were performed during the first year of the pandemic. KTS time was calculated as operation start time minus time sent for patient. Average time during the pandemic for emergency LC KTS was 56 minutes and 35 minutes for elective LC. Comparison of these times to HD revealed no statistical difference (Emergency LC 56 mins vs 58 mins p > 0.05, Elective LC 35 mins vs 35 mins p > 0.05). The anaesthetic time for emergency LC during the pandemic vs HD was 10 mins vs 14 mins (p < 0.05), no statistical difference was found in the elective group, 16mins vs 14mins (p > 0.05) Conclusions The Covid-19 pandemic has had no detectable effect on Knife to skin time as compared to our previous historical data. It seems the extra Covid 19 precautions involving PPE, pathways etc. have not affected theatre efficiency or utilisation. In fact, there was very little variance in KTS time over the six years studied (2015-2021) with very consistent levels for both elective and emergency procedures. The shorter anaesthetic time for emergency LC during the pandemic needs to be further investigated but one hypothesis is the unconscious or conscious decision to decrease the amount of preoxygenation to minimise aerosolisation.

The new SUMPOT to predict postoperative complications using an Artificial Neural Network

An accurate assessment of preoperative risk may improve use of hospital resources and reduce morbidity and mortality in high-risk surgical patients. This study aims at implementing an automated surgical risk calculator based on Artificial Neural Network technology to identify patients at risk for postoperative complications. We developed the new SUMPOT based on risk factors previously used in other scoring systems and tested it in a cohort of 560 surgical patients undergoing elective or emergency procedures and subsequently admitted to intensive care units, high-dependency units or standard wards. The whole dataset was divided into a training set, to train the predictive model, and a testing set, to assess generalization performance. The effectiveness of the Artificial Neural Network is a measure of the accuracy in detecting those patients who will develop postoperative complications. A total of 560 surgical patients entered the analysis. Among them, 77 patients (13.7%) suffered from one or more postoperative complications (PoCs), while 483 patients (86.3%) did not. The trained Artificial Neural Network returned an average classification accuracy of 90% in the testing set. Specifically, classification accuracy was 90.2% in the control group (46 patients out of 51 were correctly classified) and 88.9% in the PoC group (8 patients out of 9 were correctly classified). The Artificial Neural Network showed good performance in predicting presence/absence of postoperative complications, suggesting its potential value for perioperative management of surgical patients. Further clinical studies are required to confirm its applicability in routine clinical practice.

Surgical Site Infection in a Tertiary Care Teaching Hospital

Introduction: Surgical site infections [SSIs] are the Third most common nosocomial infections, According to the National Nosocomial Infections Surveillance, patients who are hospitalized account for 15 to 18 percent of all nosocomial infections .increased mortality and morbidity rates associated with Surgery. Surgical wounds are divided into four categories: clean, clean-contaminated, contaminated and dirty wounds. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study, done throughout for two years period, from June 2018 to May 2020 .785 patients underwent surgery in the Dept. of General Surgery in Saveetha Medical College and Hospital, Thandalam. Were taken as part of this study. Elective surgical procedures were performed on 495 patients. And 290 were taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. An in-depth examination of these cases was conducted, taking into account the date of admission, clinical features, history, types of surgery [emergency or elective], pre-operative preparation, drain used, and its type and postoperative findings. Results: Surgical Site Infections were found in 58 cases out of 785 surgeries. In elective clean and contaminated patients, the overall postoperative SSI rate is 4.34 percent of all cases, whereas emergency cases account for 12.41 percent. According to the research, that the most prevalent type of surgical site infection is superficial surgical site infection accounting for 72.1 percent of all SSIs in elective cases and 61.11 percent in emergency cases, and deep surgical site infection accounting for 23.25 percent of elective cases and 30.55 percent of emergency cases. Conclusion: The most common bacteria found in elective surgical wounds are E. coli. Proteus mirabilis is the most prevalent organism isolated from emergency surgical wounds. A shift in the pre-operative period antibiotics may even diminish the occurrence. Pre-existing medical conditions like diabetes mellitus wound type, operation time, emergency procedures, and wound contamination all had a significant impact on the development of surgical site infection.

OV15 EMERGENCY SURGERY OF OBSTRUCTED VENTRAL HERNIA USING TAPP TECHNIQUE: A SAFE AND FEASIBLE APPROACH

Aim to explain and show the feasibility of laparoscopic TAPP technique in emergency procedures Material and Methods we present a 71-year-old female with personal history of obesity (BMI 32) and a laparoscopic right hemicolectomy performed in 2018, presenting at the ER with a 24-hour intestinal obstruction due to incarcerated ventral incisional hernia. Results laparoscopic reduction of the hernia contents was achieved without need of intestinal resection, prior to access to the preperitoneal space, creating a peritoneal flap that was dissected around the hernia. Following closure of the hernia defect, a polypropylene mesh was placed and the peritoneal flap closed. There were no intraoperative or postoperative events and patient was discharged on 3rd POD. Conclusions laparoscopic approach to emergency hernias in selected patients doesn’t differ from elective surgery, and offers great advantages in terms of evaluation of the incarcerated elements, and postoperative recovery, especially in obese patients where a conventional open approach has higher morbidity.

Preoperative Progressive Pneumoperitoneum Revisited

Incisional hernia represents a common and potentially serious complication of open abdominal surgery, with up to 20% of all patients undergoing laparotomy subsequently developing an incisional hernia. This incidence increases to as much as 35% for laparotomies performed in high-risk patients and emergency procedures. A rarely used technique for enabling closure of large ventral hernias with loss of domain is preoperative progressive pneumoperitoneum (PPP), which uses intermittent insufflation to gradually stretch the contracted abdominal wall muscles, increasing the capacity of the abdominal cavity and allowing viscera to re-establish right of domain. This assists in tension-free closure of giant hernias which may otherwise be considered inoperable. This technique may be used on its own, or in conjunction with preoperative Botulinum Toxin A to confer paralysis to the lateral oblique muscles. These two complementary techniques, are changing the way complex hernias are managed.