Introduction
Since the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, cardiac surgeries in
patients with previous infection by COVID-19 were suspended or postponed,
which led to surgeries performed in patients with an advanced stage of their
disease and an increase in the waiting list. There is a heterogeneous
attitude in Latin America on the optimal timing to cardiac surgery in
patients with previous COVID-19 infection due to scarce data on its outcome.
Two Latin American associations joined to establish common suggestions on
the optimal timing of surgery in patients with previous COVID-19
infection.
Methods
Data collection was performed using a pre-established form, which included
year of publication, objective, type of study (prospective/retrospective,
descriptive/analytical), number of patients, year of study, waiting time
between infection and surgery, type of surgery, morbidity, mortality, and
conclusions regarding the association between mortality and morbidity. Final
recommendations were approved by the board of directors of Latin American
Association of Cardiac and Endovascular Surgery (LACES) and Latin American
Confederation of Anesthesia Societies (CLASA).
Results
Of the initial 1,016 articles, 11 comprised the final selection. Only six of
them included patients who underwent cardiac surgery. According to the
analyzed literature, optimal timing for cardiac surgery needs to consider
the following aspects: deferable surgery, symptomatic COVID-19 infection,
completeness of COVID-19 vaccination.
Conclusion
These recommendations derive from the analysis of the scarce literature
published at present on outcomes after cardiac surgery in patients with
previous COVID-19 infection. These are to be taken as a dynamic
recommendation in which Latin American reality was taken into
consideration.
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