New guidance for surgery on recovered COVID-19 patients — 5 things to know

The American Society of Anesthesiologists published guidelines for scheduling emergency and non-emergency surgery on patients who have had and recovered from COVID-19.

Five key takeaways:

1. All non-urgent procedures should be delayed until a patient previously infected with COVID-19 is no longer in isolation and has entered the recovery phase.

2. The physician anesthesiologist, surgeon or proceduralist should jointly agree to proceed before elective surgery on patients who have recovered from COVID-19.

3. Physicians should consider the severity of a patient's symptoms and the amount of time since the onset of symptoms in determining when the individual is no longer infectious, according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

4. The CDC states that the virus is generally only detected for 10 days from the start of mild to moderate symptoms. The agency also suggests surgery should wait until at least 24 hours have passed since the patient's last fever (without the use of fever-reducing medications), as well as until coughing and shortness of breath have improved.

5. Depending on the severity of a patient's symptoms, the American Society of Anesthesiologists suggests different wait times from COVID-19 diagnosis to day of surgery:

  • Four weeks for an asymptomatic patient or recovery from mild, non-respiratory symptoms
  • Six weeks for a symptomatic patient with cough or difficulty breathing who did not require hospitalization
  • Eight to 10 weeks for a symptomatic patient who is diabetic, has severely low immune defenses or is hospitalized
  • Twelve weeks for a patient who was admitted to an intensive care unit due to COVID-19 infection

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