Lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic: impact on infants with pyloric stenosis

Network, Paediatric Surgery Trainee Research, Arthur, Felicity, Harwood, Rachel, Allin, Benjamin, Bethell, George Stephen, Boam, Tristan, Chhabra, Sumita, Eastwood, Mary Patrice, Ford, Kathryn, Rhodes, Hannah, Hotonu, Sesi, Rooney, Aileen, Billington, Jennifer, Davidson, Joseph Rutherford, Dewar, Greg, Durand, Ciaran, Engall, Nick, Green, Patrick, Jobson, Matthew, Starr, Anthony and Tullie, Lucinda GC (2021) Lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic: impact on infants with pyloric stenosis. Archives of Disease in Childhood. (doi:10.1136/archdischild-2020-320544).

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges for the delivery of healthcare for infants with disruption to 6-week health checks and health visitor services.1 An area of particular concern is late presentation to the hospital.2 However, current data do not offer an objective picture of how significant a problem this may be, with other reports showing low rates of delays in presentation.3 Infantile hypertrophic pyloric stenosis (IHPS) is a common, non-infective infantile condition with a predictable clinical course and therefore a good indicator condition to assess for delays in presentation. We aimed to assess whether infants with IHPS presented later during ‘lockdown’ compared with the same period the preceding year.

Ten centres within the UK (England, Scotland and Northern Ireland) contributed data from babies with IHPS via a website (covidinchildren.co.uk) between 23 March 2020 and 31 May 2020 (the COVID-19 lockdown period) and between 23 March and 31 May 2019 (controls). A total of 87 eligible infants were included, comprising 40 controls (46%) and 47 cases (54%). The demographic and baseline characteristics of the two groups were similar (table 1 and figure 1).

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