Quantitative assessment of the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on pancreatic surgery: an Italian multicenter analysis of 1423 cases from 10 tertiary referral centers

Few evidences are present on the consequences of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic on pancreatic surgery. Aim of this study is to evaluate how COVID-19 influenced the diagnostic and therapeutic pathways of surgical pancreatic diseases. A comparative analysis of surgical volumes and clinical, surgical and perioperative outcomes in ten Italian referral centers was conducted between the first semester 2020 and 2019. One thousand four hundred and twenty-three consecutive patients were included in the analysis: 638 from 2020 and 785 from 2019. Surgical volume in 2020 decreased by 18.7% (p < 0.0001). Benign/precursors diseases (− 43.4%; p < 0.0001) and neuroendocrine tumors (− 33.6%; p = 0.008) were the less treated diseases. No difference was reported in terms of discussed cases at the multidisciplinary tumor board (p = 0.43), mean time between diagnosis and neoadjuvant treatment (p = 0.91), indication to surgery and surgical resection (p = 0.35). Laparoscopic and robot-assisted procedures dropped by 45.4% and 61.9%, respectively, during the lockdown weeks of 2020. No difference was documented for post-operative intensive care unit accesses (p = 0.23) and post-operative mortality (p = 0.06). The surgical volume decrease in 2020 will potentially lead, in the near future, to the diagnosis of a higher rate of advanced stage diseases. However, the reassessment of the Italian Health Service kept guarantying an adequate level of care in tertiary referral centers. Clinicaltrials.gov ID: NCT04380766.