Surgical Interventions in Patients Hospitalised with COVID-19. A Review of Seven Months of Experience Working in a COVID-19 Dedicated Centre

The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has made changes to the traditional way of performing surgical consultations. The aim of the present study was to assess the need for surgical care performed by various surgical specialties among patients infected with COVID-19 hospitalized in a COVID-19 dedicated hospital. All surgical consultations performed for patients infected with COVID-19 in a COVID dedicated hospital in a seven month period were evaluated. Data on demographics, surgical specialty, consult reason, procedure performed, and whether it was a standard face to face or teleconsultation were gathered. Out of 2359 COVID-19 patients admitted to the hospital in the seven month period, 229 (9.7%) required surgical care. Out of those 108 consultations that did not lead to surgery, 71% were managed by telemedicine. A total of 36 patients were operated on while suffering from COVID-19. Out of them, only three patients admitted primarily for COVID-19 pneumonia underwent emergency surgery. The overall mortality among those operated on was 16.7%. Conclusions: Patients hospitalised with COVID-19 may require surgical care from various surgical specialties, especially during peaks of the pandemic. However, they rarely require a surgical procedure and only occasionally require major surgery. A significant portion of potentially surgical problems could be managed by teleconsultations.