Abstract
Background: The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been rapidly evolving, resulting in a pandemic, with 270,031,622 infections according to the World Health Organization. Patients suffering from COVID-19 have also been described to suffer from neurologic and coagulopathic symptoms apart from the better-known flu-like symptoms. Some studies showed that patients suffering from COVID-19 were likely to developed intracranial hemorrhages. To our knowledge, only a few studies have investigated postoperative complications in COVID-19-positive neurosurgical patients and investigated the perioperative complications, either thrombotic or hemorrhagic, in patients with SARS-CoV-2 undergoing a neurosurgical intervention. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study including patients from March 2020 to March 2021 undergoing neurosurgical interventions and suffering from COVID-19. Our primary outcome parameter was a hemorrhagic or thrombotic complication within 30 days after surgery. These outcomes were compared to those for a COVID-19-negative cohort of patients using propensity score matching. Results: We included ten COVID-19-positive patients with a mean age of 56.00 (±14.91) years. Twelve postoperative complications occurred in five patients. Three thrombotic complications (30%) were observed, with two cerebral sinus vein thromboses and one pulmonary embolus. Two patients suffered from a postoperative hemorrhagic complication (20%). The mean postoperative GCS was 14.30 (±1.57). COVID-19-positive patients showed a significantly higher rate of overall postoperative complications ((6 (60.0%) vs. 10 (19.2%), p = 0.021), thrombotic complications (3 (30.0%) vs. 1 (1.9%), p = 0.009), and mortality (2 (20.0%) vs. 0 (0.0%), p = 0.021) compared to the matched cohort of COVID-19-negative patients, treated at our institute before the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Conclusion: Patients undergoing neurosurgical operations with concomitant COVID-19 infection have higher rates of perioperative complications.
Highlights
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), originating in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, was caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) [1]
Several studies have focused on the changes in referrals and organization of neurosurgical units during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic but only few studies have investigated the incidence of perioperative complications in patients undergoing cranial neurosurgical procedures with concomitant COVID-19 infection [13,14,15,16]
This study aimed to investigate the rate of perioperative hemorrhagic or thrombotic complications in SARS-CoV-2-positive patients undergoing neurosurgical procedures
Summary
The outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), originating in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019, was caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2(SARS-CoV-2) [1]. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), it has been rapidly spreading all over the world, causing 270,031,622 infections and 5,310,502 deaths by December 2021 [2] It typically manifests as fever, cough, diarrhea, and fatigue; patients suffering from COVID-19 have been described to suffer from neurologic symptoms [3,4]. Several studies have focused on the changes in referrals and organization of neurosurgical units during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic but only few studies have investigated the incidence of perioperative complications in patients undergoing cranial neurosurgical procedures with concomitant COVID-19 infection [13,14,15,16]. Only a few studies have investigated postoperative complications in COVID-19-positive neurosurgical patients and investigated the perioperative complications, either thrombotic or hemorrhagic, in patients with SARS-CoV-2 undergoing a neurosurgical intervention.
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