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. 2021 Dec;48(13):4331-4338.
doi: 10.1007/s00259-021-05361-9. Epub 2021 Jun 24.

Quantitative impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown on nuclear medicine in France: the CORALINE study

Jonathan Vigne  1   2   3 , Damien Peyronnet  4   5 , Julien Leenhardt  6   7 , Constance Dubegny  8 , Valérie Ardisson  9 , Guillaume Pariscoat  10 , Claire Bolot  11 , Aurore Rauscher  12 , François Hallouard  13 , Caroline Clave-Darcissac  13 , Anthony Clotagatide  14   15 , Emmanuel Odouard  14   15 , Alain Faivre-Chauvet  8 , Justine Diehl  16 , Benjamin Houdu  4 , Denis Agostini  4 , Rémy Morello  16
Affiliations

Quantitative impact of the first COVID-19 lockdown on nuclear medicine in France: the CORALINE study

Jonathan Vigne et al. Eur J Nucl Med Mol Imaging. 2021 Dec.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: COVID-19; Lockdown; Nuclear medicine; Public health.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Timeline of nuclear medicine examinations volume in the French participating centres, before, during and after the first COVID-19 lockdown from February 17 to June 11, 2020. Weekly planned examination volumes that were performed (green bars) and not performed (red bars) are represented. *SFMN is the French acronym for French Society of Nuclear Medicine
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Timeline of nuclear medicine examinations volume by type of planned procedure in the French participating centres, before, during and after the first COVID-19 lockdown from February 17 to June 11, 2020. Weekly planned examination volumes that were performed (up) and not performed (down) of positron emission tomography (blue), conventional nuclear medicine (green) and nuclear cardiology (red) are represented
Fig. 3
Fig. 3
Comparison of the percentage of nuclear medicine examinations performed (attenders) and not performed (cancellation by the patient, cancellation by the department, cancellation by the referring physician and non-attenders) between university hospitals (n = 7) and cancer centres (n = 2) from February 17 to June 11, 2020
Fig. 4
Fig. 4
Timeline of nuclear medicine examination volume by age of patients in the French participating centres before, during and after the first COVID-19 lockdown from February 17 to June 11, 2020. Weekly planned examination volumes that were not performed (up) and performed (down) are represented. Age categories in years were 0–17 (blue), 18–30 (green), 31–65 (yellow), 66–80 (purple) and over 80 (red)
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