Robotic surgery can be safely performed for patients and healthcare workers during COVID‐19 pandemic

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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Robotic surgery can be safely performed for patients and healthcare workers during COVID‐19 pandemic

Katharina Boehm Axel Haferkamp Peter Sparwasser Robert Dotzauer W. Jäger Igor Tsaur Mohammed Kamal Gheith Rene Mager Maximillian P Brandt Hendrik Borgmann Maximillian Haack Alexander Ziebart Thomas Höfner

subject

Male safety medicine.medical_specialty Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Health Personnel 610 Medizin coronavirus Biophysics SARS‐CoV‐2 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Robotic Surgical Procedures 610 Medical sciences Health care Pandemic medicine Humans Robotic surgery 030212 general & internal medicine Elective surgery Pandemics Aged Retrospective Studies robotics SARS-CoV-2 business.industry COVID-19 Robotic Surgical Procedures Retrospective cohort study Middle Aged infection Computer Science Applications body regions 030220 oncology & carcinogenesis Emergency medicine Female Original Article Surgery business 2019‐nCoV Cohort study

description

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the safety of robotic surgery during COVID-19 pandemic concerning new-acquired COVID-19 infections for patients and healthcare workers. PATIENTS: We performed a retrospective single-centre cohort study of patients undergoing robotic surgery in initial period of COVID-19 pandemic. Patients and Healthcare workers COVID-19 infection status was assessed by structured telephone follow-up and/or repeated nasopharyngeal swabs. RESULTS: After 61 robotic surgeries (93,5% cancer surgery), 1 patient (1.6%) had COVID-19 infection. 60 healthcare workers cumulatively exposed to 1,187 hours of robotic surgery had no infection. One patient with postoperative proof of SARS-CoV-2 had complete recovery. After this potentially contagious robotic surgery, 8 healthcare workers had no COVID-19 infection after follow-up with each 3 nasopharyngeal swabs. CONCLUSIONS: Early clinical experience of robotic surgery during COVID-19 pandemic shows that robotic surgery can be safely performed for patients and healthcare workers. Despite our results we recommend elective surgery only for verified COVID-19 negative patients. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

year	journal	country	edition	language
2021-05-22	The International Journal of Medical Robotics and Computer Assisted Surgery

https://doi.org/10.1002/rcs.2291