Search

Purpose: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic reshaped the usual risk: benefit equilibrium that became a trade-off between the infection exposure risk for the patient (and for staff) and the risk associated with delaying or cancelling the nuclear medicine examination. This study aimed at quantifying the impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown in France on nuclear medicine examination volume together with volume of examination cancellation and non-attendance., Methods: We retrospectively assessed the volume of planned examinations from 1 month before to 1 month after the first lockdown in French high-volume nuclear medicine departments (NMD) sharing the same information management system including both university hospitals, UH (n = 7), and cancer centres, CC (n = 2)., Results: The study enrolled 31,628 consecutive patients referred for a nuclear medicine examination performed or not (NMEP or NMEnP). The total volume of NMEP significantly dropped by 43.4% between the 4 weeks before and after the starting of the lockdown. The comparison of the percentage of NMEP and NMEnP between UH and CC is significantly different (p < 0.001). The percentage of NMEP during the study was 67.9% in UH vs 84.7% in CC. Percentages of NMEnP in UH and CC were due respectively to cancellation by the patient (14.9 vs 7.4%), cancellation by the NMD (9.5 vs 3.4%), cancellation by the referring physician (5.1 vs 4.4%) and non-attender patients (2.7 vs 0.2%)., Conclusion: The study underlines the public health issue caused by COVID-19 above the pandemic itself and should be useful in preparing for potential resource utilisation and staffing requirements., (© 2021. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.)

Dear Sir, Since the first cases reported in China in December 2019 [[1]], coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by a novel coronavirus, now referred to as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), became a pandemic raising a lot of concern to control [[2]]. Protection of nuclear medicine staff Although biological COVID-19 protection is currently evaluated and bears specificities, it shares a common approach with radiological protection that is well mastered by nuclear medicine teams. Nuclear medicine staffs are occasionally using FFP 2 respirators (or N95 respirators) when taking care of patients with bacterial, fungal, or viral (e.g., influenza) respiratory infections. [Extracted from the article]