Journal of Minimal Access Surgery (Jan 2021)

Impact of COVID-19 pandemic on bariatric surgery in India: An obesity and metabolic surgery society of India survey of 1307 patients

  • Aparna Govil Bhasker,
  • Manish Khaitan,
  • Vivek Bindal,
  • Amardeep Kumar,
  • Anirudh Rajkumar,
  • Anshuman Kaushal,
  • Arun Prasad,
  • Chirag Parikh,
  • Daksh Sethi,
  • Deep Goel,
  • Deepak Thampi Hareendran,
  • Digvijay Bedi,
  • Gurvinder Singh Jammu,
  • Jayanth Leo,
  • Kuldeepak Kular,
  • Mahendra Narwaria,
  • Mahesh Chikkachanappa,
  • Manish Motwani,
  • Manoj Bharucha,
  • Mohamed Ismail,
  • Nandkishore Dukkipati,
  • Neha Shah,
  • Om Tantia,
  • Parag Patel,
  • R Padmakumar,
  • Rahul Singh,
  • Raj Palaniappan,
  • Rajesh Shrivastava,
  • Ram Raksha Pal Rajput,
  • Ramen Goel,
  • Randeep Wadhawan,
  • Rohit Garg,
  • Sandeep Aggarwal,
  • Sanjay Patolia,
  • Sarfaraz J Baig,
  • Shashank Shah,
  • H V Shivaram,
  • Shrihari Dhorepatil,
  • Sukhvinder Singh Saggu,
  • Surendra Ugale,
  • T Perungo,
  • Vandana Soni

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4103/jmas.JMAS_2_21
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 17, no. 4
pp. 542 – 547

Abstract

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Background: Although safe practice guidelines were issued by the Obesity and Metabolic Surgery Society of India (OSSI) in the end of May 2020, surgeons have been in a dilemma about risk of subjecting patients to hospitalisation and bariatric surgery. This survey was conducted with the objective to evaluate the risk of coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) infection in peri- and post-operative period after bariatric and metabolic surgery (BMS). Methods: A survey with OSSI members was conducted from 20 July 2020 to 31 August 2020 in accordance with EQUATOR guidelines. Google Form was circulated to all surgeon members through E-mail and WhatsAppTM. In the second phase, clinical details were captured from surgeons who reported positive cases. Results: One thousand three hundred and seven BMS were reported from 1 January 2020 to 15 July 2020. Seventy-eight per cent were performed prior to 31 March 2020 and 276 were performed after 1 April 2020. Of these, 13 (0.99%) patients were reported positive for COVID-19 in the post-operative period. All suffered from a mild disease and there was no mortality. Eighty-seven positive cases were reported from patients who underwent BMS prior to 31 December 2019. Of these, 82.7% of patients had mild disease, 13.7% of patients had moderate symptoms and four patients succumbed to COVID-19. Conclusion: BMS may be considered as a safe treatment option for patients suffering from clinically severe obesity during the COVID-19 pandemic. Due care must be taken to protect patients and healthcare workers and all procedures must be conducted in line with the safe practice guidelines.

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