Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on glaucoma surgery in German hospitals.

PURPOSE

To assess the quantitative changes in surgical glaucoma care in German hospitals between 2019 and 2022 with special focus on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on overall volume and trends within glaucoma surgery.

METHODS

The quality reports of The Federal Joint Committee (G-BA), containing information on the quantity of surgical glaucoma procedures of 296 German hospitals were obtained in machine-readable form for the years 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. We analyzed the annual numbers and proportions of different glaucoma surgery types as categorized by German OPS codes, with special focus on 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany.

RESULTS

The total number of surgical glaucoma procedures in German hospitals in 2020 decreased by 8.5% compared to 2019 and recovered to pre-pandemic levels in 2021. Within filtration surgery, the number of classic trabeculectomy steadily declined while bleb-forming filtration devices were used more frequently. In all four years, cyclodestructive procedures were the most frequently performed interventions overall.

CONCLUSION

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on overall surgical volume, especially in 2020, was substantial but overall moderate and transient. The trend towards minimally invasive procedures and bleb-forming filtration devices accelerated after 2020, resulting in a pronounced decline of classic filtration surgery, such as trabeculectomy.