In this study, PCA was useful for analgesia in patients undergoing lumbar PVA and probably would have influenced the usage time of O2 in the group of long PVA in face of a larger sample. The use of PCA did not influence the time of leaving the bed and the in-hospital length of stay for the patients studied.

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Introduction Preoperative testing for COVID‐19 has become widely established to avoid inadvertent surgery on patients with COVID‐19 and prevent hospital outbreaks. Methods A prospective cross sectional study was carried out in two university hospitals examining the pre‐operative protocols for patients undergoing otolaryngology surgery and the incidence of COVID‐19 within 30 days of surgery in patients and the otolaryngologists performing surgery. Results One hundred and seventy‐three patients were recruited. One hundred and twenty‐three (71%) patients “cocooned” for 14 days prior to surgery. All completed a questionnaire prior to admission. One hundred and fifty‐six patients (90%) had reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction (RT‐PCR) nasopharyngeal swabs, 14 patients (8%) had CT thorax. No cases of COVID‐19 were detected among patients followed up at 30 days. Two surgeons developed COVID‐19 early during the study period. Conclusion Current pre‐operative testing protocols consisting primarily of questionnaires and RT‐PCR resulted in zero cases of COVID in this cohort. It is possible that COVID‐19 restrictions and high proportion of patients cocooning preoperatively were factors in ensuring a low rate of COVID‐19 post‐operatively.

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