The early response of plastic and reconstructive surgery services to the COVID-19 pandemic: A systematic review

Abstract

The World Health Organisation characterised the spread of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) as a pandemic in March 2020, signalling medical governance and professional organisations worldwide to make urgent changes in their service. We have performed a systematic review of the literature to identify all published literature on plastic surgery and COVID-19, in an effort to summarise the evidence for future reference. Our search identified 1207 articles from electronic databases and 17 from manual search, out of which 20 were included in the final data synthesis. Out of the included studies, most originated from the United States (n = 12), five from Europe, two from China and one from Australia. Strategies described to limit the spread and impact of the virus could be divided into nine distinct categories, including the suspension of non-essential services, use of telemedicine, use of personal protective equipment, screening patients for COVID-19, restructuring the healthcare team, adapting standard management practices, using distance-learning for trainees, promoting public education and initiatives, and minimising intra-hospital viral transmission. The ever-changing nature of the COVID-19 may prompt plastic surgeons to adapt special strategies as pandemic progresses and subsequently declines. The findings of this review can prove beneficial to other plastic surgery

Breast Reconstruction during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Systematic Review

“…The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic dramatically changed the landscape of plastic surgery across the globe. [1][2][3] Breast reconstruction in particular has faced many challenges during the pandemic, including accommodating reconstructive surgery in an extremely strained healthcare setting and ensuring the safety of both patients and healthcare providers during the pre-, intra-, and postoperative course. 4,5 In response to the pandemic, many professional organizations placed restrictions on breast reconstruction in an effort to conserve resources and divert them to COVID-19 patients.…”

The impact of COVID-19 on plastic and reconstructive surgery in China: A single-centre retrospective study

“…We analyzed the severity and evolution across multiple dimensions in 10827 patients in the three years before and after the outbreak. As several studies have described 10 , 11 , the pandemic has restricted the development of the plastic surgery industry due to factors such as changes in the allocation of health resources and industry policy 12 , as well as financial and psychosocial factors 7 , 13 . One of the psychological factors that stands out is that the acceptance of operations during the pandemic period can be influenced by the fear of people concerning the risk of getting infected.…”

Trend of Academic Productivity in Plastic Surgery and the Impact of COVID-19: A Bibliometric Analysis

“…For example, some studies have focused on the use of telemedicine in plastic and reconstructive surgery 29–31. The analysis of terms extracted from the titles and abstracts showed that the co-occurrence heat of basic research-related content decreased in 2020–2021 (as shown in Supplemental Table 3, Supplemental Digital Content 2, http://links.lww.com/SCS/E547), which may be on account of the trend of shrinking research funding during the pandemic 32–34. The popularity of topics such as review, systematic review, and database increased after the emergence of COVID-19, which was consistent with the change in the proportion of article types in 2020–2021 (Fig.…”