The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of brain tumor surgeries in Poland: A national database study.

BACKGROUND: The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has greatly affected the treatment of most medical conditions. In particular, the treatment of seriously ill patients had to be adjusted due to the limited availability of in-hospital procedures. OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of COVID-19-related changes on neuro-oncological surgeries in the Polish medical system. MATERIAL AND METHODS: Data from the period of 2010-2020 were collected from National Health Insurance database for 2 diagnosis-related groups: A11 (complex intracranial procedures) and A12 (large intracranial procedures). The total number of procedures and diagnoses per year, trend changes and changes in procedures grouped by medical type were analyzed, including resections/biopsies, malignant/stable (nonmalignant) lesions, elective/acute procedures, and length of stay. RESULTS: Mean yearly numbers of 7177 (standard deviation (SD) = 760) procedures and 5934 (SD = 1185) diagnoses were recorded. Both numbers were growing up to 9.1% per year until 2018. From 2018, a 3.1% decrease in the number of procedures was observed, with a significantly larger decrease of 10.5% observed in 2020 (p < 0.001). The number of diagnoses decreased in 2019 by 2.7%, and by 9.2% in 2020 (p = 0.706), with a statistically significant change in the annual growth rate (p = 0.044). The number of resections decreased by 11.5% in 2020 (p = 0.204), with a significant change in the annual growth rate (p < 0.001). The number of biopsies decreased by 2.5% in 2020 (p = 0.018), with the annual decrement in 2019/2020 also being significant (p = 0.004). Decreases were observed in 2019 and 2020 for the number of malignant (0.5% and 6.3%, respectively) and nonmalignant (5.4% and 12.9%, respectively) tumors (p = 0.233 and p = 0.682 for absolute values, and p = 0.008 and p = 0.004 for the annual growth rates, respectively). The number of acute procedures in 2020 further decreased by 9.8% from 5.5% decrease in 2019 (p = 0.004), and the number of elective procedures decreased by 11.8% (p = 0.009). The annual growth rates for both acute and elective procedures were statistically significant (p < 0.001 and p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The decrease in the number of neuro-oncological surgeries appeared to be much lower than the 20% decrease observed for general oncological surgeries in Poland during the COVID-19 pandemic. This seems to have resulted from postponing the treatment of less critical cases (i.e., nonmalignant and elective) and focusing on the treatment of the most precarious patients.

The Increased Mortality Rate with Lower Incidence of Traumatic Brain Injury during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A National Study.

BACKGROUND: the COVID-19 pandemic with the following lockdown strategies have affected virtually all aspects of everyday life. Health services all over the world faced the crisis on an unprecedented scale, hampering timely care delivery. The present study was designed to assess the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the incidence and treatment of traumatic brain injuries in Poland. METHODS: the data on hospital admissions with traumatic brain injuries as the primary diagnosis were extracted from the National Health Fund of Poland. For the purpose of this study, the search was limited to four relevant diagnosis-related groups. The overall in-house mortality was calculated. RESULTS: there were 115,200 hospitalizations due to traumatic brain injury identified in the database. Overall, in comparison with the average of six prior years, in 2020 the volume of patients with traumatic brain injury dropped by 24.68% while the in-house mortality rate was increased by 26.75%. CONCLUSIONS: the COVID-19 pandemic with the resulting lockdown caused a radical reduction in human mobility. It had a profound impact on the incidence of traumatic brain injury, which dropped significantly. At the same time, the mortality rate increased drastically.

YouTube as a Source of Patient Information for Meningiomas: A Content Quality and Audience Engagement Analysis.

YouTube (YT) has become a popular health information reservoir. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the content and quality of YT videos as a source of patient information for meningiomas. A YT search was conducted for the following terms: "meningioma", "meningiomas", "meningeal tumor", and "psammoma". A total of 119 videos were examined by five independent raters, using validated quality criteria, including the Quality Criteria for Consumer Health Information (DISCERN), the Journal of the American Medical Association instrument (JAMA), and the Global Quality Score (GQS). The mean DISCERN score was 35.6 points, while the mean GQS and JAMA scores were 2.4 and 1.8, respectively. The majority of the videos were produced in the United States (37.82%). Moreover, 47.9% of the evaluated videos were graded as "poor" and only 9.24% were "good". Statistically higher scores in all three scoring systems were associated with the following information: tumor localization, clinical manifestations, indications for surgery, treatment options, risks, adjuvant therapies, results, follow up, diagrams, and those that featured a doctor as the speaker. Misleading information was presented in 35 productions. Our findings show that the overall quality of YT on the topic of meningiomas is defective, and requires further improvement and evaluation.

Acute Stroke Care during COVID-19: National Data.

(1) Background: The pandemic of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown strategies had a profound impact on many aspects of everyday life. During this time the world faced the unprecedented crisis of healthcare disrupting timely care delivery. This study was designed to evaluate the impact of the pandemic on the acute treatment of stroke in Poland. (2) Methods: The national data on hospitalizations with stroke as a primary diagnosis were obtained from the National Health Fund of Poland. Poisson regression was used to determine the significance of the change in hospital admissions. The differences between proportions were analyzed using the "N-1" Chi-squared test. (3) Results: During the COVID-19 period, the number of hospitalizations dropped by 8.28% with a monthly nadir of 22.02 in April. On a monthly scale during 2020, the greatest decrease was 22.02%. The thrombolysis ratio was also affected, with the highest monthly drop of 15.51% in November. The overall number of in-hospital deaths did not change. (4) Conclusions: The pandemic caused a serious disruption of the acute care of stroke. There is no evidence that the quality of care was seriously compromised.

YouTube as a source of patient information on brain aneurysms: a content-quality and audience engagement analysis.

INTRODUCTION: The internet allows patients to access a vast amount of health information. We aimed to evaluate the credibility of YouTube videos that members of the public are accessing on brain aneurysms, and to evaluate what characteristics drive audience engagement. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The first 50 videos for each of the following search terms were taken for analysis: 'brain aneurysm', 'cerebral aneurysm' and 'intracranial aneurysm'. The quality of each video was evaluated by two neurosurgeons and two medical students independently using the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) and the DISCERN instruments. Qualitative and quantitative video data was analysed for quality and audience engagement. Inter-rater agreement was ascertained. RESULTS: Out of a total of 150 videos, 70 met the inclusion criteria. The mean total DISCERN score was 36.5 ± 8.4 (out of 75 points), indicating that the videos were of poor quality. The mean JAMA score was 2.7 ± 0.7 (out of 4 points). Inter-rater agreement between the four raters was excellent (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.90 for DISCERN and 0.93 for JAMA). Most videos were uploaded by hospitals (50%) or educational health channels (30%). Videos had a higher number of average daily views when they included animation (P = 0.0093) and diagrams (P = 0.0422). CONCLUSIONS: YouTube is a poor source of patient information on brain aneurysms. Our quality and audience engagement analysis may help content creators (i.e. hospital staff and physicians) to create more holistic, educational and engaging medical videos concerning brain aneurysms. Physicians could usefully refer their patients to the highest quality videos that we have found.

YouTube as a source of patient information for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): A content-quality and audience engagement analysis.

YouTube is the second most popular website in the world and is increasingly being used as a platform for disseminating health information. Our aim was to evaluate the content-quality and audience engagement of YouTube videos pertaining to the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)-CoV-2 virus which causes the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), during the early phase of the pandemic. We chose the first 30 videos for seven different search phrases: "2019 nCoV," "SARS CoV-2," "COVID-19 virus," "coronavirus treatment," "coronavirus explained," "what is the coronavirus" and "coronavirus information." Video contents were evaluated by two independent medical students with more than 5 years of experience using the DISCERN instrument. Qualitative data, quantitative data and upload source for each video was noted for a quality and audience engagement analysis. Out of the total 210 videos, 137 met our inclusion criteria and were evaluated. The mean DISCERN score was 31.33 out of 75 possible points, which indicates that the quality of YouTube videos on COVID-19 is currently poor. There was excellent reliability between the two raters (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.96). 55% of the videos discussed prevention, 49% discussed symptoms and 46% discussed the spread of the virus. Most of the videos were uploaded by news channels (50%) and education channels (40%). The quality of YouTube videos on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 is poor, however, we have listed the top-quality videos in our article as they may be effective tools for patient education during the pandemic.

Are online searches for the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) related to media or epidemiology? A cross-sectional study.

BACKGROUND: Previous studies on the novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) have found strong correlations between online searches and the epidemiology of the disease. AIM: Our aim was to determine if online searches for COVID-19 related to international media announcements or national epidemiology. METHODS: Searches for "coronavirus" were made on Google Trends from December 31, 2019 to April 13, 2020 for 40 European countries. The online COVID-19 searches for all countries were correlated with each other. COVID-10 epidemiology (i.e. incidence and mortality) was correlated with the national online searches. Major announcements by the World Health Organization (WHO) were taken into consideration with peaks in online searches. Correlations were made using Spearman's rank correlation coefficient. RESULTS: Overall, the online searches for COVID-19 were not correlated with the actual incidence and mortality of COVID-19. The mean Spearman correlation for incidence was 0.20 (range -0.66 to 0.76) and for mortality was 0.35 (range -0.75 to 0.85). Online searches in Europe were all strongly synchronized with each other; a mean Spearman correlation of 0.93 (range 0.62 to 0.99). CONCLUSIONS: Online searches for COVID-19 in Europe are not correlated with epidemiology but strongly correlated with international WHO announcements. Our study challenges previous Google Trends studies and emphasizes the role of the WHO in raising awareness of a new disease.