Grubic AD, Ayazi S, Zebarjadi J, Tahmasbi H, Ayazi K, Jobe BA. COVID-19 outbreak and surgical practice: The rationale for suspending non-urgent surgeries and role of testing modalities. World J Gastrointest Surg 2020; 12(6): 259-268 [PMID: 32774764 DOI: 10.4240/wjgs.v12.i6.259]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Shahin Ayazi, MD, Foregut Surgeon, Esophageal and Lung Institute, Department of Surgery, Allegheny Health Network, 4815 Liberty Avenue, Suite 439, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, United States. shahin.ayazi@ahn.org
Research Domain of This Article
Surgery
Article-Type of This Article
Minireviews
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Gastrointest Surg. Jun 27, 2020; 12(6): 259-268 Published online Jun 27, 2020. doi: 10.4240/wjgs.v12.i6.259
COVID-19 outbreak and surgical practice: The rationale for suspending non-urgent surgeries and role of testing modalities
Andrew D Grubic, Shahin Ayazi, Javad Zebarjadi, Hamed Tahmasbi, Khosro Ayazi, Blair A Jobe
Andrew D Grubic, Shahin Ayazi, Blair A Jobe, Esophageal and Lung Institute, Department of Surgery, Allegheny Health Network, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, United States
Javad Zebarjadi, Hamed Tahmasbi, Khosro Ayazi, Department of Surgery, Imam Hossein Hospital, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran 1617763141, Iran
Author contributions: All author contributed to this work; Grubic AD, Ayazi S, Zebarjadi J, Tahmasbi H, Ayazi K, and Jobe B had concept of the study and designed it; Grubic AD, Ayazi S, Zebarjadi J, and Tahmasbi H reviewed the literature; Grubic A, Ayazi S, Zebarjadi J, Tahmasbi H, Ayazi K, and Jobe BA drafted the manuscript; Ayazi S, Ayazi K, and Jobe BA provided critical revision.
Conflict-of-interest statement: There is no conflict of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Shahin Ayazi, MD, Foregut Surgeon, Esophageal and Lung Institute, Department of Surgery, Allegheny Health Network, 4815 Liberty Avenue, Suite 439, Pittsburgh, PA 15224, United States. shahin.ayazi@ahn.org
Received: April 23, 2020 Peer-review started: April 23, 2020 First decision: April 29, 2020 Revised: May 1, 2020 Accepted: May 19, 2020 Article in press: May 19, 2020 Published online: June 27, 2020 Processing time: 56 Days and 15.2 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus has become a critical challenge to global health with immense economic and social disruption. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has become a “stress test” to evaluate the capacity and resilience of our surgical community in dealing with the challenges imposed to our health system and society. Some aspects of the COVID-19 outbreak are relevant to surgical practice and modifying practice can reduce risk to patients and staff alike. We discuss considerations during the pre-operative and post-operative periods as well as the utility and limitations of COVID-19 testing. Computed tomography scan is currently the most sensitive modality for COVID-19, and while reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction is highly specific, sensitivity is considerably viable based on multiple factors.
