Acute Care Surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain: Changes in volume, causes and complications. A multicentre retrospective cohort study

during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of Acute Care Surgery procedures performed in Spanish hospitals decreased significantly. The aim of this study was to compare Acute Care Surgery activity during the COVID-19 pandemic and during a control period. a multicenter retrospective cohort study was performed including patients who underwent Acute Care Surgery in three tertiary care hospitals in Spain during a control (11th March 2019 to 21st April 2019) and a pandemic (16th March 2020 to 26th April 2020) period. Type of surgical procedures, patients' features and postoperative complications were compared. two hundred and eighty-five and 117 patients were included in each group. Mean number of patients who underwent Acute Care Surgery during the control and pandemic periods was 2.3 and 0.9 patients per day and hospital (p