Background/aims The COVID-19 crisis and the decisions made regarding population lockdown may have changed patient care. We aimed to investigate the incidence rate of rhegmatogenous retinal detachment (RRD) cases during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

Methods In this nationwide database study, we identified hospital and clinic admissions of French residents for a first episode of RRD in France from 2017 to the lockdown period in 2020. The monthly hospital incidence rates of RRD procedures per 100 000 inhabitants before, during and after lockdown were computed for the whole country. Finally, we assessed the influence of viral incidence on the RRD incidence rate, comparing two regions with highly contrasting viral penetration.

Results From January to July, the average monthly national hospital incidence rate of RRD decreased from a mean of 2.59/100 000 inhabitants during 2017–2019 to 1.57/100 000 inhabitants in 2020. Compared with 2019, during the 8-week lockdown period in 2020, a 41.6% decrease in the number of RRD procedures was observed (p<0.001) with the weekly incidence of RRD decreasing from 0.63/100 000 inhabitants in 2019 to 0.36/100 000 inhabitants. During the 4-month post-lockdown period, no increased activity related to postponed procedures was observed. No difference was found in the rate of RRD surgery when comparing two regions with highly contrasting viral incidence.

Conclusion Containment may have been responsible for a decrease in the number of surgical procedures for RRD, without any compensating post-lockdown activity in France. These results might help increase awareness of the management of RRD emergencies.

All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplemental information. Aggregate data extracted from health insurance databases are only accessible to authorised personnel. The number of retinal detachments per month in France is available in table 1.

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