ENT surgery during COVID-19 pandemic: Tips for safe surgery and how to prioritize them

Year 2020, Volume: 30 Issue: 1, 41 - 51, 10.05.2020

Kadir Serkan Orhan Cömert Şen Levent Aydemir Mehmet Çelik Meryem Nesil Keleş Türel

Abstract

The outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 COVID-19 has spread worldwide, causing health systems to collapse. The COVID-19 outbreak has disrupted outpatient and inpatient services, making it almost impossible for patients to access high-quality healthcare services. Additionally, there is a significant hesitation in the management of diseases in need of surgical treatment. Cancers, life-threatening infectious diseases, and injuries are cases where there is no option of treatment delay. Besides, mostly surgical methods are used in their treatment. Therefore, during the pandemic, hospitals need to reorganize themselves and continue to provide healthcare services that are not subject to postponement. While the COVID-19 outbreak continues, maintaining these services will put healthcare workers and patients at risk of transmission. Therefore, some articles about measures that hospitals and healthcare professionals should take were published. In this review, we developed a guide for the management of otolaryngological diseases which need surgical treatment.

Keywords

COVID-19, head and neck surgery, otorhinolaryngology, surgery

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