Updates in surgery
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Since the beginning of the pandemic due to the novel severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and its related disease, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), several articles reported negative outcomes in surgery of infected patients. Aim of this study is to report results of patients with COVID-19-positive swab, in the perioperative period after surgery. Data of COVID-19-positive patients undergoing emergent or oncological surgery, were collected in a retrospective, multicenter study, which involved 20 Italian institutions. ⋯ One surgeon, one scrub nurse and two circulating nurses were infected after surgery due to the lack of specific PPE. We reported less surgery-related pulmonary complications and mortality in Sars-CoV-2-infected patients, than in literature. Emergent and oncological surgery should not be postponed, but it is mandatory to use full PPE, and to adopt preoperative screenings and strategies that mitigate the detrimental effect of pulmonary complications, mostly responsible for mortality.