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Updated: Jun 25, 2025
Lung CT Segmentation to Identify Consolidations and Ground Glass Areas for Quantitative Assesment of SARS-CoV Pneumonia
Published on: December 19, 2020
Does coronavirus disease 2019 history alone increase the risk of postoperative pulmonary complications after surgery?
Ah Ran Oh1, Eun-Suk Kang2, Jungchan Park1
1Department of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine, Samsung Medical Center, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
Background:
Concern exists about the increasing risk of postoperative pulmonary complications in patients with a history of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Objective:
We conducted a prospective observational study that compared the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications in patients with and without a history of COVID-19.
Methods:
From August 2022 to November 2022, 244 adult patients undergoing major non-cardiac surgery were enrolled and allocated either to history or no history of COVID-19 groups. For patients without a history of confirming COVID-19 diagnosis, we tested immunoglobulin G to nucleocapsid antigen of SARS-CoV-2 for serology assessment to identify undetected infection. We compared the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications, defined as a composite of atelectasis, pleural effusion, pulmonary edema, pneumonia, aspiration pneumonitis, and the need for additional oxygen therapy according to a COVID-19 history.
Results:
After excluding 44 patients without a COVID-19 history who were detected as seropositive, 200 patients were finally enrolled in this study, 100 in each group. All subjects with a COVID-19 history experienced no or mild symptoms during infection. The risk of postoperative pulmonary complications was not significantly different between the groups according to the history of COVID-19 (24.0% vs. 26.0%; odds ratio, 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.71-1.37; P-value, 0.92). The incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications was also similar (27.3%) in excluded patients owing to being seropositive.
Conclusion:
Our study showed patients with a history of no or mild symptomatic COVID-19 did not show an increased risk of PPCs compared to those without a COVID-19 history. Additional precautions may not be needed to prevent PPCs in those patients.
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