To report the impact of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic on management and outcomes of paediatric appendicitis in the UK and Ireland.
Prospective, multicentre observational cohort study at general surgical and specialist paediatric surgical centres in the United Kingdom and Ireland from 1st April to 31st July 2020. Primary outcome was treatment strategy used for acute appendicitis.
This study includes 2002 children treated for acute appendicitis of a median age of 10 (range 1-15) years and 605 children from a similar data set pre pandemic from 2017. In the pandemic cohort 560/2002(28%) were initially treated non-operatively of whom 125/560(22%) proceeded to appendicectomy within initial hospital admission. Non-operative treatment wasn't used in the pre-pandemic cohort. Diagnostic imaging use was greater during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic (54vs31%; p
