Abstract
The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has caused several million infections and hundreds of thousands of deaths. A large number of healthcare workers have died as a result of infection with this virus. Therefore, elective surgery was markedly reduced or stopped in our hospital’s orthopedic department. The detection of asymptomatic COVID-19-positive patients became key to reducing the infection risk to physicians and staff to allow orthopedic surgery to be performed. A total of 21 patients were scheduled to undergo orthopedic surgery, including elective surgery, in Shonantobu General Hospital, Chigasaki City, Kanagawa, Japan. All 21 patients gave permission to undergo loop-mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) screening the day before surgery. None of the 21 patients we tested was positive for COVID-19. All patients remained asymptomatic during the two to four weeks of postoperative follow-up. No physicians or medical staff developed COVID-19 symptoms. This was a very small study in a city with a relatively low incidence of COVID-19. We found that LAMP screening was accurate, in terms of its negative predictive value. Larger studies are needed.
Highlights
The first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) occurred in Wuhan, China, and was reported in December 2019
A number of lines of evidence indicate that transmission of the virus by asymptomatic patients is possible and that this may have hastened the spread of COVID-19 [1,2]
The global COVID-19 pandemic is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus and has so caused several million
Summary
The first case of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) occurred in Wuhan, China, and was reported in December 2019. On January 16, 2020, the first reports of COVID-19 were officially announced by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour, and Welfare. The COVID-19 pandemic is the largest health care crisis of this century. A large number of health care workers have died following infection with this virus. Elective surgery was markedly reduced or stopped in the orthopedic department of the hospital, despite its importance in preserving the quality of life and activities of daily living. A number of lines of evidence indicate that transmission of the virus by asymptomatic patients is possible and that this may have hastened the spread of COVID-19 [1,2]. The management of asymptomatic patients to reduce the infection risk to physicians and medical staff is important to allow orthopedic surgery to be performed safely.
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