NUR 03.4 - Venous Thrombosis events 2020 - 2022 in a teaching hospital: Comparison with positive Covid diagnoses

Background: In January 2020 the World Health Organisation emergency committee declared a global health emergency for the novel coronavirus SARS‐CoV‐2. In University hospital Plymouth (UHP) the first case was diagnosed on the 15th of March 2020 and first death on the 24th of March 2020. Covid is a virus causing mild to moderate respiratory symptoms in most people. In UHP data has been collected on VTE events since 2011 with pulmonary embolism (PE) seen annually on average in 483 (SD 22.649) patients up to end 2019. While total VTE over same period averaged 810 (SD 30.402).

Aims: To investigate whether Covid had any impact on PE events diagnosed within UHP

Methods: Data collected on PE events diagnosed between 13th March 2020 to end of 2022 and compare with previous years data. Compare with both local and National information on Covid diagnoses to look for any changes or correlation.

Results: In 2020 similar numbers of PE were seen compared to historical (413) but in 2021 there was an increase of 22% to 590 events and in 2022 similar results seen including 504 new PE’s. Total VTE in 2020 and 2021 were 765 and 944 respectively. In figure 1 there is a comparison between Plymouth positive Covid cases and new PE events noted from 13/10/20 to 18/3/21 and similarly from 13/6/21 to 13/5/22 where the two lines follow a similar pattern. In figure 2 where National Covid data is compared with PE the findings are broadly similar. Vaccinations against Covid began in December 2020 with nearly 37 ½ million doses administered by July 2021. Despite this and with different variants there was a bigger increase in Covid cases in November 2021.

Conclusion(s): There appears to be an increase in PE associated with increase in Covid cases over the last two years which continued despite increased vaccination uptake.