TL;DR

Es führen nur noch ca. 40% der "Gastroenterologen" ca. 60% aller Endoskopien (weiterhin) durch!

​

​

The COVID-19 pandemic is having a disruptive effect on the workflow and safety of GI-endoscopy units worldwide.

Most GI endoscopy units in Europe are having to manage the current situation with shortages of personnel and PPEs, substantial reductions in the volume of screening endoscopy procedures, enormous pressures on prioritizing endoscopic procedures, and postponing many procedures without knowing exactly when patients will be rescheduled.

​

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, the following list of GI endoscopy procedures should be postponed with no need to reschedule before 12 weeks (low priority)
Surveillance for:

 

• Barrett’s Esophagus without dysplasia or Low-Grade Dysplasia or after endoscopic treatment

• Gastric atrophy/Intestinal Metaplasia

• Inflammatory Bowel Disease

• Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis

• Post-endoscopic resection (including immediate endoscopy after resection), surgical resection of cancer or post-polypectomy surveillance

• Diagnosis/surveillance of Lynch syndrome and other hereditary syndromes

• Diagnosis of Irritable Bowel Syndrome-like symptoms

• Diagnosis of reflux disease, dyspepsia (no alarm symptoms)

• Screening in high risk patients for esophageal cancer, gastric cancer, colon cancer (primary screening endoscopy) or pancreatic cancer

• Bariatric GI endoscopy procedures (e. g., intra-gastric balloons, endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty)

 

As a consequence of the current knowledge, endoscopy societies have recommended postponing or cancelling all but emergency and urgent endoscopic interventions.

Our results show that approximately one third of the participating endoscopy units followed these recommendations, because more than 60% of all procedures were cancelled. However, approximately 40% of the endoscopy units still performed more than 60% of their procedures

​

Cancellations of Interventions

A total of 253 (38.6%) endoscopy units cancelled less than 40%, whereas 225 (34.3%) cancelled more than 60% of their procedures.
nterestingly, 45.6% of private practices cancelled less than 40% of their procedures, compared to 33.8% of hospital-based units.

​

Quellen:

[1] ESGE[1] and ESGENA Position Statement on gastrointestinal endoscopy and the COVID-19 pandemic

[2] German Endoscopy Unit Q3 Q4 Preparations for the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic: A Nationwide Survey (Gastroenterology 2020)

[3] Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on gastrointestinal endoscopy in Africa

​

​