Surgery in patients diagnosed with COVID-19 infection carries significant mortality and morbidity but the appropriate waiting period before surgical intervention after recovering from COVID-19 is not known.
A team at St Bart’s Hospital, London, aimed to determine the safety of deferring surgery and the earliest safe period for surgery.
COVID-19 infection is associated with a high incidence of severe acute respiratory illness requiring invasive mechanical ventilation. Due to the rapid spread of the infection, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on 11 March 2020.1
Reports describe a high rate of mortality and morbidity (prolonged mechanical ventilation) in patients who underwent surgical procedures and were diagnosed with COVID-19 during the peri-operative period.2,3 In our own experience, developing COVID-19 in the immediate cardiac post-operative period carried a mortality up to 44%.4
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