ESCP strikes partnership with CovidSurg

ESCP strikes new global research partnership with CovidSurg to explore the effects of COVID-19 in surgery.

COVID-19 is a rapidly expanding global challenge, placing a huge burden on healthcare systems. There is no evidence to inform the management of surgical patients with COVID-19 infection. Sharing international experience is vital to inform the management of this complex group of patients, improving their clinical care.

ESCP has established a robust and successful network of 1000s of surgeons who have been sharing expertise with impactful outputs in, and contributing to, some of the largest collaborative surgical research studies in recent years. This large network has published several cohort studies which already influence clinical practice.

CovidSurg is a collaboration of >2800 surgeons and anaesthetists from 115 countries delivering a set of studies to collect international data and efficiently inform clinical practice. In this new partnership, ESCP has become a strategic CovidSurg partner in the collaboration, encouraging the European and global surgical community to participate in vital CovidSurg studies.

Professor Charles H Knowles, chair of ESCP Research Committee said:

“The ESCP research committee are delighted that our strong platform for performing large scale, global audits and trials is now being flexed to address the pressing issue of our time. The ESCP membership have again proved why, we as a society, are now the frontrunner in leading research in our field. Well done to all those members who are making this possible”.

Aneel Bhangu, from the CovidSurg Steering Group and NIHR Unit on Global Surgery said about the co-badging:

“We are delighted to have ESCP support for CovidSurg studies. The ESCP network includes many surgeons who are facing challenging times these days when managing COVID-19 patients in theatre and surgical wards. We acknowledge that participating in research studies during the COVID-19 pandemic requires a big effort from all the collaborators and we are pleased to help ESCP members setting up their sites to be involved. We are working to efficiently turn this effort into patient benefit. ESCP members have already shown their capacity to deliver impactful research in the several cohort studies and recently by the massive adherence to the EAGLE trial. We hope these studies are meaningful for ESCP members and we would be delighted to have them on board.”

There are a number of cohort studies that aim to evaluate surgical patients management and outcomes:

· CovidSurg cohort study: will capture the outcomes of surgery for patients who have COVID-19 infection. It will include patients undergoing ANY type of surgery, who are diagnosed with COVID-19 infection at the time of surgery or within 30 days. Data can be collected either retrospectively or prospectively. For details and docs: www.globalsurg.org/covidsurgcohortstudy

· Cancer-CovidSurg: will include all cancer patients with a tumour board decision for surgery (both operated and non-operated patients, COVID +ve and COVID -ve are included). This study aims to determine outcomes for patients who are operated during the pandemic, but also for the ones who have delayed surgery or alternative treatment. Participating centres can include one or more of these cancer types: Colorectal, Oesophagogastric, Head and neck, Lung, Liver, Pancreatic, Sarcoma, Kidney, Bladder, Prostate, Uterine, Ovarian and Breast. For details and docs: www.globalsurg.org/cancercovidsurg

· Surgical team model: to estimate how many surgeons get infected by COVID-19 and the impact of surgeons’ sickness on surgical care delivery. Please contribute with real-world data here:

· English version: www.is.gd/covidsurgsurvey2

· Italian version: www.is.gd/surveyitalian

· Spanish version: www.is.gd/surveyspanish

Elective cancelations model: to capture how many elective procedures are cancelled during the different phases of the COVID-19 outbreak. Data is under analysis. To get involved, please register at: www.tiny.cc/covidsurg

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