Conservative Management of Acute Appendicitis In The Era Of COVID 19: A Multicenter prospective observational study at The United Arab Emirates

AbstractBackgroundSince its emergence in December 2019, the Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in a profound impact on the health care system worldwide. We propose herein to evaluate the impact of implementing conservative management as an alternative approach to surgical appendectomy in the treatment of proven acute appendicitis during COVID19 pandemic.MethodsOur study is a prospective multicenter study that includes a cohort of 160 patients admitted to the surgical departments in both Tawam Hospital and Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City, Abu Dhabi, UAE, for the period from February 2020 till July 2020.ResultsOur results showed that 56 of our patients (35%) were treated conservatively, while the other 104 (65%) underwent operative management. There was a significant decrease in length of hospital stay (LOS) (2.32± 0.83 days) among the first group compared to the second (2.8± 1.47 days). Also, short term follow-up showed that 90% of those patients did not require further operative intervention or developed any serious complications. Out of the 110 patients that were swapped for COVID19, nine (8.18%) were confirmed to be positive. Our protocol was to avoid surgical management for COVID19 positive patients unless indicated. This resulted in (8/9) of COVID19 positive patients to be treated conservatively. Follow up was achieved by using telemedicine-based follow-up with the aim of empowering social distancing and reducing risk of viral exposure to patients as well as the health care providers. In conclusion, our results showed that the implementation of conservative management in treating patients with acute appendicitis who were COVID19 positive is a safe and feasible approach that maybe essential in reducing viral transmission risks as well as avoiding operative risks on COVID19 positive patients.