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. 2021 Mar;123(4):823-833.
doi: 10.1002/jso.26377. Epub 2021 Jan 11.

Early postoperative outcomes among patients with delayed surgeries after preoperative positive test for SARS-CoV-2: A case-control study from a single institution

Glauco Baiocchi  1 , Samuel Aguiar Jr  1 , Joao P Duprat  1 , Felipe J F Coimbra  1 , Fabiana B Makdissi  1 , José G Vartanian  1 , Stenio de C Zequi  1 , Jefferson L Gross  1 , Suely A Nakagawa  1 , Guilherme Yazbek  1 , Thiago P Diniz  1 , Bruna T Gonçalves  1 , Charles E Zurstrassen  1 , Heloisa G do A Campos  1 , Eduardo H G Joaquim  2 , Ivan A França E Silva  3 , Luiz P Kowalski  1
Affiliations

Early postoperative outcomes among patients with delayed surgeries after preoperative positive test for SARS-CoV-2: A case-control study from a single institution

Glauco Baiocchi et al. J Surg Oncol. 2021 Mar.

Abstract

Background: There are limited data on surgical complications for patients that have delayed surgery after severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. We aimed to analyze the surgical outcomes of patients submitted to surgery after recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Methods: Asymptomatic patients that had surgery delayed after preoperative reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for SARS-CoV-2 were matched in a 1:2 ratio for age, type of surgery and American Society of Anesthesiologists to patients with negative RT-PCR for SARS-CoV-2.

Results: About 1253 patients underwent surgical procedures and were subjected to screening for SARS-CoV-2. Forty-nine cases with a delayed surgery were included in the coronavirus disease (COVID) recovery (COVID-rec) group and were matched to 98 patients included in the COVID negative (COVID-neg) group. Overall, 22 (15%) patients had 30-days postoperative complications, but there was no statistically difference between groups -16.3% for COVID-rec and 14.3% for COVID-neg, respectively (odds ratio [OR] 1.17:95% confidence interval [CI] 0.45-3.0; p = .74). Moreover, we did not find difference regarding grades more than or equal to 3 complication rates - 8.2% for COVID-rec and 6.1% for COVID-neg (OR 1.36:95%CI 0.36-5.0; p = .64). There were no pulmonary complications or SARS-CoV-2 related infection and no deaths within the 30-days after surgery.

Conclusions: Our study suggests that patients with delayed elective surgeries due to asymptomatic preoperative positive SARS-CoV-2 test are not at higher risk of postoperative complications.

Keywords: SARS-CoV-2; surgical complications; surgical oncology.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that there are no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow‐chart of the 147 patients included in the study. COVID, coronavirus disease; SARS‐CoV‐2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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