Abstract:

Aim : During the COVID-19 pandemic, all elective surgeries, except emergency surgeries and surgeries for patients with malignancy, were postponed. However, thoracic surgery clinics continued to operate during the pandemic. In this study, patients who presented to the thoracic surgery clinic of our hospital during and those who presented before the COVID-19 pandemic were compared, and changes in characteristics of the patients presenting to the thoracic surgery clinic during the COVID-19 pandemic were investigated. Materials and methods: Age, gender, and reason for admission to the hospital were documented for all patients who presented to the thoracic surgery clinic of our hospital during March 2019–March 2020 and March 2020–March 2021. Patients presenting to the clinic were categorized into malignancy, trauma, chest pain, pneumothorax, and other disease groups. Results: In total, 947 patients presented to the clinic in the prepandemic period. Conversely, 756 patients presented to the clinic during the pandemic. In the prepandemic period, 353 patients presented with trauma; this number decreased to 154 during the pandemic. Additionally, during the pandemic, a decrease was observed in all patient admissions other than those due to malignancies. Conclusion: During the pandemic, there has been a decrease in patient admissions due to trauma, mostly as a result of curfews and restrictions. However, there has been a significant increase in the number of patients presenting with lung malignancies during the pandemic. This may be due to findings of incidental lung masses in the thoracic computed tomography performed after COVID-19 prediagnosis.

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