ArticleEuropean journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery2025
Cardiac Surgery During and After the Pandemic: A Retrospective Analysis of UK Trends and Outcomes.
Article in European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Trainee exposure to valve surgery in the UK: safety, decline and organisational inequality in a national cohort.Open heart · 2026Article
- Long-term clinical outcomes in patients aged 50 to 70 years old undergoing surgical aortic valve replacement in the United Kingdom.JTCVS open · 2026Article
- Review
- Five-Year Hospital Readmission After Isolated Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting in the United Kingdom.European journal of cardio-thoracic surgery : official journal of the European Association for Cardio-thoracic Surgery · 2026Article
- Cardiac surgery transformation throughout the COVID-19 era: analysis of 12,409 patients.Irish journal of medical science · 2026Article
- Virtual Reality for Perioperative Care in Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.Cureus · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesThe full extent of the COVID-19 pandemic's impact during different phases of the pandemic and the recovery of cardiac surgical services in the United Kingdom have not been comprehensively assessed. This study aims to evaluate these disruptions' impact and immediate recovery on delivering adult cardiac surgical care in the United Kingdom.
methodsThe periods investigated were divided into pre-lockdown, first lockdown, first relaxation, second lockdown, second relaxation, third lockdown, and post-lockdown (recovery). Changes in surgical practice, early and mid-term clinical outcomes, and hospital readmission were analysed using various metrics across different time periods.
resultsCoronary artery bypass grafts were the most performed procedure across all time periods, with the average number of urgent and emergency increasing compared to the pre-pandemic period. Aortic valve replacement was the next most frequent, followed by combined aortic valve and coronary artery bypass surgery. However, those procedures remained predominantly elective across all periods. There was a significant change in 30-day mortality rates across the pandemic phases (P < .001), with higher mortality observed post-pandemic. There was a gradual increase in the waiting times for elective and urgent surgeries from January 2018 to March 2022. Patients who had surgery before March 2020 had a significantly lower hazard of mid-term mortality than those who were operated on after this period (HR, 0.638; 95% CI, 0.5875-0.6921). All procedures showed gradual recovery across the pandemic periods following an initial decline at the beginning of the pandemic.
conclusionsCOVID-19 had a significant negative impact on adult cardiac surgical case mix and volume and has not recovered to the pre-pandemic levels. This work, we believe, is important for policymakers, healthcare providers, and patients, as it offers insights into the challenges faced by a critical healthcare sector during a global crisis and highlights potential avenues for improvement.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.