Pediatric appendicitis in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A retrospective chart review.

Aim: Conduct a time trend analysis that describes 2 groups of patients admitted to a large tertiary children's hospital that presented with appendicitis and determine if there was an increase in complicated appendicitis when compared between 2 time periods before and during the early coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic of 2020.

Methods: We conducted a retrospective analysis of all children presenting to a single-center site with appendicitis between March 23 and August 31, 2020, in the Central Texas region. We compared 507 patients presenting with appendicitis from the non-COVID-19 era in 2019 with n = 249 to patients presenting during the COVID time period with n = 258.