The impact of the first and the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic on vascular surgery practice in the leading regional center: a comparative, retrospective study.

Background: We conducted an analysis of the vascular surgery regional center reorganization in response to the first and the second wave of the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to see what lessons we learned from the first wave.

Methods: The study included a total of 632 patients admitted to the vascular surgery department in three periods: March-May 2020, October-December 2020, and October-December 2019 as a control period.

Results: In the pandemic periods the number of admitted patients decreased in relation to the control period.