Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Jul;272(1):e27-e29.
doi: 10.1097/SLA.0000000000003925.

COVID-19 Outbreak and Surgical Practice: Unexpected Fatality in Perioperative Period

Ali Aminian  1 , Saeed Safari  2 , Abdolali Razeghian-Jahromi  3 , Mohammad Ghorbani  2 , Conor P Delaney  4
Affiliations

COVID-19 Outbreak and Surgical Practice: Unexpected Fatality in Perioperative Period

Ali Aminian et al. Ann Surg. 2020 Jul.

Abstract

: Little is known about surgical practice in the initial phase of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global crisis. This is a retrospective case series of 4 surgical patients (cholecystectomy, hernia repair, gastric bypass, and hysterectomy) who developed perioperative complications in the first few weeks of COVID-19 outbreak in Tehran, Iran in the month of February 2020. COVID-19 can complicate the perioperative course with diagnostic challenge and a high potential fatality rate. In locations with widespread infections and limited resources, the risk of elective surgical procedures for index patient and community may outweigh the benefit.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

All authors have completed and submitted the ICMJE Form for Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest. None was directly related to the study.

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Chest CT scan of COVID-19 pneumonia. A, Case 1: Bilateral large areas of ground-glass opacities and consolidations, giving a white lung appearance, 19 d after an elective incisional hernia repair. B, Case 2: Unilateral peripheral ground-glass opacities 16 d after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. C, Case 3: Bilateral dependent consolidations in lung bases with minimal pleural effusion 3 d after hysterectomy and cholecystectomy.
FIGURE 1 (Continued)
FIGURE 1 (Continued)
Chest CT scan of COVID-19 pneumonia. A, Case 1: Bilateral large areas of ground-glass opacities and consolidations, giving a white lung appearance, 19 d after an elective incisional hernia repair. B, Case 2: Unilateral peripheral ground-glass opacities 16 d after laparoscopic cholecystectomy. C, Case 3: Bilateral dependent consolidations in lung bases with minimal pleural effusion 3 d after hysterectomy and cholecystectomy.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Guan WJ, Ni ZY, Hu Y, et al. Clinical characteristics of coronavirus disease 2019 in China. N Engl J Med 2020; [Epub ahead of print]. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wang D, Hu B, Hu C, et al. Clinical characteristics of 138 hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus-infected pneumonia in Wuhan, China. JAMA 2020; [Epub ahead of print]. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Wu Z, McGoogan JM. Characteristics of and important lessons from the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak in China: summary of a report of 72 314 cases from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. JAMA 2020; [Epub ahead of print]. - PubMed
    1. Ai T, Yang Z, Hou H, et al. Correlation of chest CT and RT-PCR testing in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China: a report of 1014 cases. Radiology 2020; 200642. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Xie J, Tong Z, Guan X, et al. Critical care crisis and some recommendations during the COVID-19 epidemic in China. Intensive Care Med 2020; [Epub ahead of print]. - PMC - PubMed

MeSH terms