Surgical Protocols before and after COVID-19—A Narrative Review
Sahana Shivkumar,
Vini Mehta,
Sunil Kumar Vaddamanu,
Urvashi A. Shetty,
Fahad Hussain Alhamoudi,
Maram Ali M. Alwadi,
Lujain Ibrahim N. Aldosari,
Abdulkhaliq Ali F. Alshadidi,
Giuseppe Minervini
Affiliations
Sahana Shivkumar
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Peoples College of Dental Sciences & Research Centre, People University, Bhopal 462037, India
Vini Mehta
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Dr. D.Y. Patil Dental College and Hospital, Dr. D.Y. Patil Vidyapeeth, Pimpri, Pune 411018, India
Sunil Kumar Vaddamanu
Department of Dental Technology, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia
Urvashi A. Shetty
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology and Oral Microbiology, AB Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, NITTE (Deemed to Be University), Mangalore 575018, India
Fahad Hussain Alhamoudi
Department of Dental Technology, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia
Maram Ali M. Alwadi
Dental Health Department, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh 11451, Saudi Arabia
Lujain Ibrahim N. Aldosari
Prosthodontics Department, College of Dentistry, King Khalid University, Abha 61421, Saudi Arabia
Abdulkhaliq Ali F. Alshadidi
Department of Dental Technology, College of Applied Medical Sciences, King Khalid University, Abha 62529, Saudi Arabia
Giuseppe Minervini
Multidisciplinary Department of Medical–Surgical and Dental Specialties, University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli, 80138 Naples, Italy
The COVID-19 epidemic has affected not only people’s daily lives but also the working methods of clinicians, surgical procedures, open/minimally invasive procedures, operating room management, patient and healthcare worker safety, education and training. The main objective of this study was to review selected articles and determine the changes in the general surgery protocols/procedures before and after the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. The literature was carried out in PubMed-Medline, Cochrane Library, Embase, Scopus and Google Scholar. The terms utilised for the searches were “SARS-CoV-2”, “Surgery”, “COVID-19”, “Surgical protocol”, “Surgical recommendations” and “before and after”. A total of 236 studies were identified, out of which 41 studies were included for data extraction. Significant changes in all the articles were observed with respect to the surgeries done before, during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, the number of elective surgeries were considerably fewer in comparison to the pre-pandemic period. Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, hospitals all throughout the world have conducted significantly fewer procedures, particularly elective/non-urgent surgeries.