Alliance for Pandemic Preparedness
May 14, 2020
COVID-19 in Post-Operative Patients: Imaging Findings
Category: Article Summary
Topic: Testing and Treatment
- COVID-19 clinical manifestations are similar to septic, thoracic, or gastrointestinal post-surgical complications. Moliere and Veillon recommend that patients who develop acute post-operative symptoms should receive chest computed tomography (CT) scans. Among 46 post-operative patients with acute symptoms, they found that 17% (n=8) were diagnosed with COVID-19 via chest CT scan (confirmed by PCR an average 1.2 days later). Among these patients, 5 required mechanical ventilation and 2 died.
- These findings suggest that COVID-19 is associated with significant morbidity and mortality among post-operative patients.
Moliere and Veillon. (May 13, 2020). COVID-19 in Post-Operative Patients: Imaging Findings. Surgical Infections. https://doi.org/10.1089/sur.2020.169