Preliminary analysis of coronavirus disease 2019 variable insertion into Vascular Quality Initiative registries

The negative effects of reduced attention to standard guidelines for screening and surgery of abdominal aortic aneurysms during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic

“…We read with interest the article by Sullivan et al. 1 The authors analyzed the Society for Vascular Surgery Vascular Quality Initiative registry from September 2020 to February 2021, 2 , 3 finding that the elective-nonelective rates of operations were not significantly different from the historical value supposing little restriction in the performance of elective procedures.…”

Reply

“…1 We acknowledge that the elective versus nonelective ratio is a marginal proxy at best for historical caseload comparisons. 2 This is particularly true in aneurysmal disease, where we combined symptomatic and ruptured aneurysm patients for purpose of COVID-19 test analysis.…”