• Changho Kim, Jong Kun Kim, In Hwan Yeo, Jae Young Choe, Jeong Eun Lee, So Jeong Kang, Chan Sub Park, Ki Tae Kwon, and Soyoon Hwang.
• Department of Emergency Medicine, School of Medicine, Kyungpook National University, Daegu 41944, South Korea.
• World J Clin Cases. 2020 May 26; 8 (10): 1944-1949.

BackgroundEven at present, we are in the middle of the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and are facing challenges in trial and error. Presently, emergency surgery for patients with suspected COVID-19 is burdensome not only for patients but also for healthcare workers. Therefore, we established a surveillance system in the emergency room and established principles for managing patients suspected of COVID-19 who require emergency surgery.Case SummaryA 67-year-old man was diagnosed with appendicitis in March 2020. His wife was diagnosed with COVID-19 10 d earlier, and the patient was in close contact with her. The patient tested negative twice on an upper respiratory COVID-19 reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction screening test, but chest X-ray and chest computed tomography revealed patchy ground-glass opacity in both upper lobes of the patient's lungs. The same emergency surgery procedure for patients with confirmed COVID-19 was applied to this patient suspected of having the disease to ensure that surgery was not delayed while waiting for the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction results. A few hours after surgery, the upper respiratory tract specimen taken in the emergency room was negative for COVID-19 but the lower respiratory tract specimen was found to be positive for the disease.ConclusionWhen COVID-19 is suspected, emergency surgery should be performed as for confirmed COVID-19 without delay.©The Author(s) 2020. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.

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