Elective Surgery during SARS-Cov-2/COVID-19 Pandemic: Safety Protocols with Literature Review

Health care systems worldwide have been affected by the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emergence since December 2019. The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic caused a steep decrease in elective surgery scheduling, to the extent of complete cancellation without future planning of safe development.

We performed a review of the literature and diagnosis data analysis with the aim to reduce the risk of operating a patient infected with SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 during the incubation period.

We searched for specific words and phrases about SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 in the PubMed database (US National Library of Medicine) from December 2019 to April 2020. A detailed analysis of the clinical picture and existing diagnostic tests for COVID-19 was performed to achieve the desired objectives.

A total of 1273 out of 5930 articles about COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2 did meet the criteria for the searched terms. We reviewed 105 articles, and 60 were selected for analysis. Specific recommendations were described based on our revision.

With the combination of immunoglobulin M and immunoglobulin G antibody tests + real-time polymerase chain reaction for SARS-CoV-2 implemented in different time periods by taking into account the natural history of the disease, it is possible to decrease the risk of operating a patient during the incubation period higher than 93%. Adding other security measures can further increase this percentage. As long as there is no immunity to COVID-19, these measures will help us to perform safer elective surgeries.