As the world continues to fight successive waves of COVID-19 variants, we have seen worldwide infections surpass 100 million. London, UK, has been severely affected throughout the pandemic, and the resulting impact on the NHS has been profound. The aim of this study is to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on theatre productivity across London’s four major trauma centres (MTCs), and to assess how the changes to normal protocols and working patterns impacted trauma theatre efficiency. This was a collaborative study across London’s MTCs. A two-month period was selected from 5 March to 5 May 2020. The same two-month period in 2019 was used to provide baseline data for comparison. Demographic information was collected, as well as surgical speciality, procedure, time to surgery, type of anaesthesia, and various time points throughout the patient journey to theatre.Aims
Methods
Sciatic nerve injury remains a significant and devastating complication of total hip arthroplasty. Incidence as quoted in the literature ranges from 0.08% in primary joint replacement to 7.5% in revision arthroplasty. While as urgent exploration is recommended for nerve palsies associated with pain, management of sciatic nerve palsy with little or no pain is still controversial. In light of this, many patients with persistent palsies are often not referred to our specialist centre until after 6 months post-injury. The aim of this study was to review the outcomes of surgical intervention in patients presenting with sciatic nerve palsy more than 6 months after total hip arthroplasty. This retrospective cohort study identified 35 patients who underwent exploration and neurolysis of the affected sciatic nerve. All patients had documented follow-up at 1, 3, 6, 12 and 18 months to assess sensory and motor recovery. Patients were scored for sensory and motor function in the tibia and common personal nerve divisions, pre and post-operatively. The scoring system devised by Kline et al (1995) was used. Pre-operative electrophysiology was also reviewed. We found a statistically significant functional recovery following neurolysis of the sciatic nerve (p<0.01). A statistically significant relationship was also found between time to neurolysis and recovery of tibial nerve function (p = 0.02), such that greater delay to neurolysis was associated with poorer recovery. There was no significant relationship between time to neurolysis and recovery of common peroneal nerve function (p = 0.28). Our results indicate that the neurolysis of the sciatic nerve, six months or more post injury is associated with functional recovery. We feel that without surgical exploration this clinical improvement would not have occurred. Therefore, we believe that neurolysis plays a vital role at any stage of sciatic nerve injury. However, early presentation to a specialist unit is associated with better outcomes.
