Timing of surgery following SARS‐CoV‐2 infection: an international prospective cohort study
Keeping surgery on hold for at least 7 weeks after a positive coronavirus test was associated with lower mortality risk compared with no delay, a large international study found.
Among 3,127 patients with a preoperative SARS-CoV-2 diagnosis, mortality was highest in those who had surgery the soonest after testing positive, Dmitri Nepogodiev, MBChB, of the University of Birmingham, England, and colleagues reported in Anaesthesia.
The 30-day postoperative mortality rates were:
- 9.1% for surgery within 2 weeks of diagnosis (104 of 1,138)
- 6.9% for surgery 3–4 weeks after testing positive (32 of 461)
- 5.5% for surgery 5–6 weeks after diagnosis (18 of 326)
- 2.0% for surgery 7 or more weeks post-diagnosis (24 of 1,202)
When compared with the adjusted 30-day mortality of 1.5% for surgery without SARS-CoV-2 infection, only the group with at least a 7-week interval between diagnosis and surgery didn’t have significantly elevated risk of death at 30 days.
https://associationofanaesthetists-publications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/anae.15458
