Guidelines on urology care during the COVID-19 pandemic (search done on 17 April 2020)
Citation: Heldwein FL, Loeb S, Wroclawski ML, et al. A Systematic Review on Guidelines and Recommendations for Urology Standard of Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic. European Urology Focus. 2020 Sep 15;6(5):1070-85.
What is this? The COVID-19 pandemic is placing a strain on healthcare systems leading to changes in how patients with other conditions are managed. Guidelines have been produced for the management of patients with existing urological conditions.
In this rapid review, the authors searched for guidelines on urology standards of care published during the COVID-19 pandemic. They restricted their searches to guidelines published in English between November 2019 and 17 April 2020. They identified 15 guidelines from Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, Canada, Europe, and the USA, and noted that the quality of the evidence was low to moderate.
What was found: At the time of this review, the included guidelines recommended active surveillance for lower risk tumours such as low risk prostate cancer, low-grade bladder cancer, and small renal masses.
At the time of this review, the included guidelines indicated that omission of systemic therapies or cytoreductive nephrectomy should be considered in some advanced cases.
At the time of this review, the included guidelines showed that treatment of non-obstructed renal stones could be delayed for months, but that infection or obstruction should be treated as an emergency.
At the time of this review, the included guidelines recommended that aerosol generating procedures should be avoided during surgery.