Colorectal Cancer Surgery at a Regional Cold Site Centre During the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic: A Comparison With Prepandemic Practices.

Introduction: Stockholm, Sweden had among the highest excess mortality rates during the first wave of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. In March 2020, an entire hospital implemented an infection-free cold site infrastructure and scaled up imperative mainly colorectal cancer surgery, for the Stockholm health care region. The study evaluated the efficacy of the concept.

Methods: Strict preadmission screening and prophylactic interventions were implemented. The outcomes of the cold site cohort (30th March-21st June 2020) were compared to a prepandemic control. Population-based data on colorectal cancer patients were collected from the Swedish Colorectal Cancer Registry.

Results: There were 107 patients in the cold site cohort and 109 in the control cohort. None developed COVID-19 within 30 days postoperatively. The proportions of pelvic and laparoscopic surgery were similar. The cold site cohort had more potentially avoidable stomas (32/94 (34%) vs 19/91 (21%), p = 0.0442). In the region, the proportion of colorectal cancer resections at the cold site increased from prepandemic 12.9% (58 of 448) to 43.3% (94 of 217) (p < 0.001).

Conclusion: A SARS-CoV-2-cold site can be kept infection-free by screening, allowing increased volumes of colorectal cancer surgery with outcomes comparable to prepandemic practice. The cold site model should be more widely adopted in future similar scenarios.

Summary: This study reports on the implementation of an entire cold site hospital for imperative colorectal surgery, in particular colorectal cancer, during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. By comparing outcomes to prepandemic practices, we demonstrated that the cold site hospital was effective in preventing infection and safely increasing surgical volume many-fold.