Cardiac operations and interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide perspective

• Published in: Europace (London, England) England), 2021-06, Vol.23 (6), p.928-936
• Main Authors: Leyva, Francisco, Zegard, Abbasin, Okafor, Osita, Stegemann, Berthold, Ludman, Peter, Qiu, Tian
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Clinical Research
• ISSN: 1099-5129; 1532-2092
• DOI: 10.1093/europace/euab013

Abstract Aims  The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a decline in hospitalizations for non-COVID-19-related conditions. We explored the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on cardiac operations and interventions undertaken in England. Methods and results  An administrative database covering hospital activity for England, the Health Episodes Statistics, was used to assess a total of 286 697 hospitalizations for cardiac operations and interventions, as well as 227 257 hospitalizations for myocardial infarction (MI) and 453 799 for heart failure (HF) from 7 January 2019 to 26 July 2020. Over the 3 months of ‘lockdown’, total numbers and mean reductions in weekly rates [n (−%)], compared with the same time period in 2019, were: coronary artery bypass grafting [−2507 (−64%)]; percutaneous coronary intervention [−5245 (−28%)]; surgical [−1324 (−41%)] and transcatheter [−284 (−21%)] aortic valve replacement; mitral valve replacement; implantation of pacemakers [−6450 (−44%)], cardiac resynchronization therapy with [−356 (−42%)] or without [−491 (−46%)] defibrillation devices, and implantable cardioverter-defibrillators [−501 (−45%)]; atrial fibrillation ablation [−1902 (−83%)], and other ablations [−1712 (−64%)] (all P