IMPACT OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON SPINE SURGERY IN A TERTIARY HEALTH CARE INSTITUTION

Objectives: To assess postoperative complications, including COVID-19 infection, among patients undergoing surgeries at a tertiary institution during the pandemic, and to develop a local epidemiological profile of spine surgery patients. Methods: Ret-rospective descriptive study of all patients who underwent spine surgery between March 2020 and 14 January 2021 in a tertiary institution in Latin America. All patients who underwent spine sur-gery were included, without age restrictions. The main outcomes were postoperative complications, including COVID-19 infection. Results: 74 patients were included in the study, 43 males and 31 females. The average age was 49.6 years. The mean duration of hospitalization was 11.5 days. Urgent surgeries were performed in 60.81% of cases. During hospitalization, only 5 of 74 patients were diagnosed with COVID-19, and only 1 patient had pulmonary involvement estimated to be greater than 50%. On average, 1.9 surgical debridements were required after postoperative surgical site infection. Conclusions: During the hospitalization period, only 6.7% of patients were diagnosed with COVID-19 infection. The COVID-19 infection death rate was 1 in 5 cases. The postoperative surgical site infection rate was 10.8%, similar to the level before the pandemic. Level of Evidence IV; Observational retrospective descriptive study.