Authors : Saloni Paranjape, Sandeep Dahiya, Umesh Kumar Valecha
DOI : 10.18231/j.ijca.2022.067
Volume : 9
Issue : 3
Year : 2022
Page No : 336-341
Background and Aims: The coronavirus pandemic continues to spike in various parts of the world. Anaesthesiologists face coronavirus positive patients for emergency and urgent procedures. Initial case series showed a high postoperative mortality for COVID-19 positive patients undergoing surgery. We aimed to find the postoperative morbidity and mortality in RTPCR positive patients undergoing urgent and emergency surgery.
Materials and Methods: We retrospectively analysed all COVID-19 RTPCR positive patients undergoing surgery between May 2020 and December 2020. Selected controls were matched for age sex and type of surgery.
Results: We identified 27 patients who were COVID-19 positive prior to surgery. The average age was 43 years. 37% (10/27) of patients were males. All surgeries were either emergencies or urgent procedures. 40% of the surgeries were exploratory laparotomies, 37% were caesareans, 11% were abscess drainages, 7.4% were trauma surgeries and 3.7% were bladder clot evacuations. 48% patients received spinal anaesthesia, 51.9% patients received general anaesthesia. This was matched in the control group as well. 30 day mortality was 7.4% in COVID-19 patients compared to 3.7% in controls. The length of ICU stay and hospital stay was significantly longer in COVID-19 patients compared to controls. The median age of survivors was 34 years compared to 86 years in non-survivors (p=0.023).
Conclusion: 30-day mortality was not significantly higher in COVID-19 positive patients undergoing surgery though they did have significantly longer ICU stay and duration of hospitalisation.
Keywords: COVID- 19, Postoperative care, Length of stay, Morbidity.