Coronavirus pandemic impact on management and treatment for early onset scoliosis

As Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) spreads worldwide, the overall incidence in early onset scoliosis (EOS) patients and the impact it has on their care remains unknown We aim to determine the impact of COVID-19 on patient encounters of EOS patients Hypothesis: Incidence of EOS patients presenting with respiratory illnesses or fever/cough increased during the months of the pandemic compared to the same months in 2019 Introduction: COVID-19 has radically affected the way physicians and institutions manage care for medically complex patients EOS patients often have poor pulmonary reserve with various comorbidities, possibly making them high risk for morbidity associated with COVID-19 We aim to examine how COVID-19 has affected patient encounters during peak viral load in our geographic region Methods: Retrospective review of EOS patients who were admitted inpatient, presented to the ER, or admitted from the ER at our institution during the pandemic (Marcha-June 2020) compared to the same time window pre-pandemic (Marcha-June 2019) Demographics and patient encounters were compared COVID-19 testing was performed at our institution via in-house developed polymerase chain reaction test with 95% specificity Results: In March-June 2019, 226 EOS patients were admitted to the hospital while 107 patients were admitted during the pandemic All patients were screened for COVID-19 during the pandemic;1 patient tested positive and was asymptomatic There was a significant decrease in the total number of hospital admissions during the pandemic (p \0 001) Inpatient admissions significantly decreased (p< 0 001) and the number of surgical procedures performed was significantly lower during COVID-19 (p \0 001) Presentations to the ER (p = 0 21) and admissions from the ER (p = 0 11) were similar between both time points There was no increase in patients with respiratory illness (p = 1) and fever/cough (p = 0 38) at admission Conclusion: EOS patient encounters of respiratory illness and fever/cough did not increase due to COVID-19 EOS patients are not contracting COVID-19 at a higher rate than the general public nor are they showing evidence of illness from the virus With appropriate precautions and prescreening, surgical procedures may be performed safely in EOS patients