The Effects on Surgical Gastorintestinal Diseases Urgent Due to the Covid-19 Pandemic

Aim: Know the impact of COVID-19 on emergency gastrointestinal surgeries in Mexico and the world and the possible complications that the pandemic could cause in post-surgical results.

Results: From its beginnings in 2019 in China, until the start of the pandemic declared by the WHO in March 2020, it caused changes in health care. Following the COVID-19 outbreak, COVID restrictions were implemented in Mexico on March 24, 2020, 26 days after the outbreak. The operation of the emergency surgery service had to continue to avoid an increase in morbidity and mortality in the population, but this was not the case for the elective surgery service, which canceled its activities to focus on the care of the COVID patient. For this reason, knowing the impact that the pandemic has generated in emergency services on perioperative results has been a priority. Systematic reviews have found that around 50% of articles recommend postponing elective surgeries, but 13% do not offer recommendations regarding this, with the conclusion that surgery is postponed as long as possible. There is no discussion of the benefit generated by emergency laparoscopic surgery versus open surgery in gastrointestinal diseases. It is important to note that there is no evidence of aerosolization risk of the virus during pneumoperitoneum and surgery.

Conclusion: During the pandemic there were changes in the health environment, complications were found in patients due to the delay in attending, diagnosing and treating these pathologies, it being of vital importance to initiate in each country a medical-surgical protocol on how to act in the event of a pandemic.