Minimising risk to thoracic surgical teams in an era of COVID-19: exploring possible preventative measures
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MINI REVIEW ARTICLE
Minimising risk to thoracic surgical teams in an era of COVID-19: exploring possible preventative measures Akshay Jatin Patel 1,2
&
Saifullah Mohamed 2 & Edward Joseph Caruana 3,4 & Babu Naidu 2,5
Received: 14 August 2020 / Revised: 27 September 2020 / Accepted: 29 September 2020 # The Author(s) 2020
Abstract The demands of curtailing the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) global pandemic have disrupted the world’s ability to care for patients with thoracic pathologies. Those who undergo thoracic surgical therapeutic procedures are a high-risk category, likely to have impaired lung function but also high risk for exposing clinical teams to aerosolised viral loads. In light of this global pandemic, thorough pre-procedural planning, adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), experienced personnel and judicious anaesthetic and intra-operative measures will serve to be instrumental in ensuring positive patient outcomes whilst still protecting the safety of healthcare workers. Keywords COVID-19 . Coronavirus . SARS-CoV-2 . Thoracic surgery . Transmission
Introduction The novel coronavirus, now termed severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), has caused a significant global impact in the space of 4 months. This has had resounding effects on the ability to deliver adequate healthcare to all those who require it. The demands of curtailing the impact of the pandemic have disrupted the world’s ability to care for patients with thoracic pathologies. The ever increasing burden of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic coupled with the finite amount of hospital resources has forced surgeons to prioritise cases and protect patients. At the
same time, however, careful consideration must also be given to the hospital policies and procedures that need to be implemented in order to protect the healthcare teams from viral transmission. Numerous bodies from multiple cancer, surgical and research organisations have come together to form consensus statements on how we can mitigate the risk of transmission through optimisation of pre-operative, intra-operative and post-operative procedures [1]. This brief article seeks to provide an overview of the current guidance on how intraoperative precautions can be employed to make thoracic surgical procedures safer for all healthcare personnel involved.
Comments * Akshay Jatin Patel [email protected] 1
Institute of Immunology & Immunotherapy, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Vincent Drive, Edgbaston, Birmingham, UK
2
Department of Thoracic Surgery, University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Trust, Birmingham, UK
3
Department of Thoracic Surgery, University Hospital of Leicester, Leicester, UK
4
NIHR Biomedical Research Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK
5
Institute of Inflammation & Ageing, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK
Therapeutic procedures on the lung during the era of COVID19 automatically place clinical teams to a hig
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