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      How sexual medicine is facing the outbreak of COVID-19: experience of Italian urological community and future perspectives

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          Abstract

          Since late December 2019, a novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was identified as the cause of a cluster of pneumonia cases in the city of Wuhan, in the Hubei Province, China. It has rapidly spread throughout China, followed by an increasing number of cases world widely. The diffusion of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has already reached the necessary epidemiological criteria for it to be declared pandemic, having infected more than 100,000 people in 100 countries. While most people with COVID-19 show only mild or uncomplicated illness, ~15–20% experience severe disease that needs hospitalization and oxygen support, and 5–10% require admission to an intensive care unit. In severe cases, COVID-19 can be complicated by an acute respiratory distress syndrome [1]. Italy is the nation outside China with the highest number of infected people and has been the first in Europe to face the outbreak of COVID-19. However, the available epidemiological data suggest that the Italian scenario may be repeated soon with a similar growth trend in the contagion throughout Europe and the United States (Fig. 1). Fig. 1 Epidemic curve of confirmed COVID-19, by date of report and region through March 17, 2020. The graph shows the number of infected people by time in Italy, Spain, UK, USA and Germany from 23/01/2020 until 17/03/2020. The exponential growth in the number of infected people experienced in Italy has represented a severe challenge for the national health system. The high number of patients who require hospitalization or in the worst case, access to intensive care unit, makes us fear that the health system may have difficulty coping with it. Moreover from March 10, the Italian government has established draconian measures to limit the spread of the infection. These decisions clearly had a severe impact on everyday social and economic life, however, even within hospitals, daily activities have undergone major changes even in specializations, such as urology, that are not directly involved in the emergency. Travel bans and restrictions caused the postponement or cancellation of several national/regional congresses. University lectures, oration courses, degrees ceremonies, and meetings have been canceled or scheduled through a conference call. In addition, to limit the spread of the infection and to increase the health resources to be allocated to the management of the epidemic, all the surgical procedures and nonurgent outpatient services for each specialty have been deferred [2, 3]. Furthermore, in some hospitals, the shortage of health personnel to manage the emergency has been so evident that it made it necessary to allocate even urologists to departments intended for the management and treatment of patients with COVID-19. Similarly in the worst scenarios, urological and other nonmedical specialization departments have been turned into medical departments due to the lack of beds. Lastly, the high contagiousness of the virus combined with the lack of aids such as masks, filters, and hospital routes has subjected health workers to the risk of contagion with many infections recorded among health workers, causing further rearrangement within the healthcare professional. All these considerations necessarily lead to rethinking how to organize our daily activities in a very different way than we used to until a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, probably all this will happen not only in Italy but also throughout Europe and for many months considering the epidemiological trends that are taking place. Indeed, several European meetings have been yet canceled and postponed. For the first time since the birth of the European Urology Society, the congress scheduled in Amsterdam on March 20th has been postponed to July. Therefore, a coordinated response of urological community is desperately needed to prepare our systems to face this unprecedented challenge. Surgical activity can be severely disrupted by an epidemic and a proper definition of which are the procedures that can be delayed is essential. Many urological procedures may require admission in the Intensive Critical Units (ICUs) immediately after the surgery or due to major life-threating complications. In the Emergency that we are approaching, our urological community should make a conjoint effort in order to define properly the elective surgical procedure that can be postponed without compromising patient’s prognosis and well-being. This important measurement for making available ICUs beds faces with a semantic issue: which surgeries can be defined as “strictly elective.” Together with all these conditions, also sexual medicine and others have to face with important changes in the clinical practice, taken into consideration the high prevalence of its interest in the general population [4, 5]. Outpatient activities will also have to be reorganized considering that some of the most important restrictive measures are social distancing and the limitation of travel. It will be necessary to establish which diagnostic procedures and which outpatient visits are to be considered mandatory and which instead are deferred. For example, it will be necessary to evaluate the risk/benefit of a procedure such as intravesical instillations that expose a patient, usually with high risk factors for COVID-19 (i.e., smoker status, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) to repeated hospital access, a place statistically at high risk of contagion. In these days, and probably this will be confirmed in the coming months, only emergency surgical procedures can be guaranteed, with considerable discomfort for all patients who fortunately have the clinical possibility to wait. This will mean that patients with Peyronie’s disease, requesting a penile implant, and anyone who needs treatment for erectile dysfunction will not be able to access treatment. We are not in a position to currently criticize these historical moments, but certainly, as health managers, we also have a duty to think about these patients. Probably, and considering the devastating economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, these patients will be asked for a more substantial outlay to access their care, with a consequent imbalance between the economic classes. Finally, given the high risk of contagion for healthcare workers, the work organization within a department must also be re-modulated in order to minimize the risk of an epidemic spreading involving a large number of workers inside of a staff, effectively excluding an entire department for a few weeks at best. All these critical issues are probably only the tip of the iceberg that the Italian urological community has had to face in daily on-field activities during the outbreak of COVID-19. Further difficulties are likely to emerge in the coming weeks as the outbreak continues. Therefore, as a European/international urological community it is important to develop shared strategies to avoid the potential collateral damage of the COVID-19 pandemic for patients with urological diseases.

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          Most cited references6

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          The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak

          Motivated by the rapid spread of COVID-19 in Mainland China, we use a global metapopulation disease transmission model to project the impact of travel limitations on the national and international spread of the epidemic. The model is calibrated based on internationally reported cases, and shows that at the start of the travel ban from Wuhan on 23 January 2020, most Chinese cities had already received many infected travelers. The travel quarantine of Wuhan delayed the overall epidemic progression by only 3 to 5 days in Mainland China, but has a more marked effect at the international scale, where case importations were reduced by nearly 80% until mid February. Modeling results also indicate that sustained 90% travel restrictions to and from Mainland China only modestly affect the epidemic trajectory unless combined with a 50% or higher reduction of transmission in the community.
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            Association of Public Health Interventions With the Epidemiology of the COVID-19 Outbreak in Wuhan, China

            Was there an association of public health interventions with improved control of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China? In this cohort study that included 32 583 patients with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in Wuhan from December 8, 2019, through March 8, 2020, the institution of interventions including cordons sanitaire , traffic restriction, social distancing, home quarantine, centralized quarantine, and universal symptom survey was temporally associated with reduced effective reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 (secondary transmission) and the number of confirmed cases per day across age groups, sex, and geographic regions. A series of multifaceted public health interventions was temporally associated with improved control of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan and may inform public health policy in other countries and regions. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has become a pandemic, and it is unknown whether a combination of public health interventions can improve control of the outbreak. To evaluate the association of public health interventions with the epidemiological features of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan by 5 periods according to key events and interventions. In this cohort study, individual-level data on 32 583 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases reported between December 8, 2019, and March 8, 2020, were extracted from the municipal Notifiable Disease Report System, including patients’ age, sex, residential location, occupation, and severity classification. Nonpharmaceutical public health interventions including cordons sanitaire , traffic restriction, social distancing, home confinement, centralized quarantine, and universal symptom survey. Rates of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infections (defined as the number of cases per day per million people), across age, sex, and geographic locations were calculated across 5 periods: December 8 to January 9 (no intervention), January 10 to 22 (massive human movement due to the Chinese New Year holiday), January 23 to February 1 ( cordons sanitaire , traffic restriction and home quarantine), February 2 to 16 (centralized quarantine and treatment), and February 17 to March 8 (universal symptom survey). The effective reproduction number of SARS-CoV-2 (an indicator of secondary transmission) was also calculated over the periods. Among 32 583 laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases, the median patient age was 56.7 years (range, 0-103; interquartile range, 43.4-66.8) and 16 817 (51.6%) were women. The daily confirmed case rate peaked in the third period and declined afterward across geographic regions and sex and age groups, except for children and adolescents, whose rate of confirmed cases continued to increase. The daily confirmed case rate over the whole period in local health care workers (130.5 per million people [95% CI, 123.9-137.2]) was higher than that in the general population (41.5 per million people [95% CI, 41.0-41.9]). The proportion of severe and critical cases decreased from 53.1% to 10.3% over the 5 periods. The severity risk increased with age: compared with those aged 20 to 39 years (proportion of severe and critical cases, 12.1%), elderly people (≥80 years) had a higher risk of having severe or critical disease (proportion, 41.3%; risk ratio, 3.61 [95% CI, 3.31-3.95]) while younger people (<20 years) had a lower risk (proportion, 4.1%; risk ratio, 0.47 [95% CI, 0.31-0.70]). The effective reproduction number fluctuated above 3.0 before January 26, decreased to below 1.0 after February 6, and decreased further to less than 0.3 after March 1. A series of multifaceted public health interventions was temporally associated with improved control of the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, China. These findings may inform public health policy in other countries and regions. This population epidemiology study examines associations between phases of nonpharmaceutical public health interventions (social distancing, centralized quarantine, home confinement, and others) and rates of laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 infection in Wuhan, China, between December 2019 and early March 2020.
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              Consulting “Dr Google” for sexual dysfunction: a contemporary worldwide trend analysis

              Google Trends (GT) is a free, easily accessible search tool which can be used to analyze worldwide "big data" on the relative popularity of search terms over a specific period of time. To determine worldwide public interest in Peyronie' disease (PD), erectile dysfunction (ED), premature ejaculation (PE) treatments, their penetrance, variation, and how they compare over time. Worldwide search-engine trends analysis included electronic Google queries from people who searched PD, ED, and PE treatments options from January 2004 to October 2018, worldwide. Join-point regression (JPR) has been performed. Comparison annual relative search volume (ARSV), average annual percentage change (AAPC) and temporal patterns were analyzed to assess loss or gain of interest. Our results showed that for PD it has been a decreased interest for Drug (AAPC: -3.1%, p < 0.01), ESWT (AAPC: -3.1%, p < 0.01), and vacuum therapy (AAPC: -1.2%, p < 0.01). In the field of ED, we observed trends toward an increased interest in prosthetic surgical treatment (AAPC: +1.7%, p = 0.4), for prostaglandins (AAPC: +0.7%, p = 0.7), for traction (AAPC: +0.6%, p = 0.1) and for ESWT (AAPC: +1.8%, p = 0.4), but without statistical significance. On the contrary, we observed a slight reduction of search for Vacuum device (AAPC: -1 %, p < 0.01). The interest in PE decreased from 2004 to today (AAPC: -1%, p < 0.01), for surgical treatment (AAPC: -3.1%, p < 0.01), drug treatment (AAPC: -3.1%, p < 0.01), and for psychotherapy (AAPC: -6.7%, p < 0.01). On the contrary, the interest in spray drugs has increased significantly (AAPC: +5.1%, p < 0.01). Patients are searching the web for sexual diseases treatment options. Understanding people inquisitiveness together with degree of knowledge could be supportive to guide counseling in the decision-making-process and put effort in certifying patient information, avoiding them to fall in the pernicious trap of 'fake-news'.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                giorgioivan1987@gmail.com
                Journal
                Int J Impot Res
                Int. J. Impot. Res
                International Journal of Impotence Research
                Nature Publishing Group UK (London )
                0955-9930
                1476-5489
                14 April 2020
                : 1-3
                Affiliations
                [1 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1757 2304, GRID grid.8404.8, Department of Urology, Careggi Hospital, , University of Florence, ; Florence, Italy
                [2 ]GRID grid.7841.a, Department of Urology, , Sapienza University, ; Rome, Italy
                [3 ]ISNI 0000 0004 1757 1969, GRID grid.8158.4, Urology section, Department of Surgery, , University of Catania, ; Catania, Italy
                [4 ]ISNI 0000 0001 2156 6853, GRID grid.42505.36, USC Institute of Urology and Catherine and Joseph Aresty Department of Urology, , University of Southern California, ; Los Angeles, CA USA
                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0138-6294
                http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4687-7353
                http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8892-5539
                Article
                270
                10.1038/s41443-020-0270-4
                7155393
                31235900
                82b883e1-f684-4f0c-8879-4570bff45d03
                © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited 2020

                This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.

                History
                : 18 March 2020
                : 23 March 2020
                : 27 March 2020
                Categories
                Perspective

                Sexual medicine
                quality of life,erectile dysfunction
                Sexual medicine
                quality of life, erectile dysfunction

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