Background The 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can complicate the perioperative course to increase postoperative mortality in operative patients, and also is a serious threat to medical staff. However, studies summarizing the impact of COVID-19 on the perioperative mortality of patients and on the safety of medical staff are lacking. Methods We searched PubMed, Cochrane Library, Embase and Chinese database National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) with the search terms “COVID-19″ or “SARS-CoV-2″ and “Surgery” or “Operation” for all published articles on COVID-19 from December 1, 2019 to October 5, 2020. Findings A total of 269 patients from 47 studies were included in our meta-analysis. The mean age of operative patients with COVID-19 was 50.91 years, and 49% were female. A total of 28 patients were deceased, with the overall mortality of 6%. All deceased patients had postoperative complications associated with operation or COVID-19, including respiratory failure, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), short of breath, dyspnea, fever, cough, fatigue or myalgia, cardiopulmonary system, shock/infection, acute kidney injury and severe lymphopenia. Patients who presented any or more of the symptoms of respiratory failure, ARDS, short of breath and dyspnea after operation were associated with significantly higher mortality ( r = 0.891, p < 0.001), while patients whose symptoms were presented as fever, cough, fatigue or myalgia only demonstrated marginally significant association with postoperative mortality ( r = 0.675, p = 0.023). Twenty studies reported the information of medical staff infection, and a total of 38 medical staff were infected, and medical staff who used biosafety level 3 (BSL-3) protective equipment did not get infected. Interpretation COVID-19 patients, in particular those with severe respiratory complications, may have high postoperative mortality. Medical staff in close contact with infected patients is suggested to take high level personal protective equipment (PPE). Funding Heilongjiang postdoctoral scientific research developmental fund and the National Natural Science Foundation of China.

Background: Existing studies have shown that the relationship between anesthetic agents and non-small-cell lung cancer (NSCLC) prognosis remains controversial. Therefore, this retrospective cohort study was designed to investigate the effects of propofol or sevoflurane anesthesia on the long-term oncologic outcomes of NSCLC patients.Methods: We identified 1,778 eligible patients (propofol-based total intravenous anesthesia (TIVA) group, n = 686; sevoflurane-based inhalation anesthesia (INHA) group, n = 1,092) out of 2,388 patients undergoing elective NSCLC surgery from June 2013 to June 2016 in the Harbin Medical University Cancer Hospital. The primary endpoints were five-year overall survival and recurrence-free survival. The secondary endpoints were independent risk factors of cancer recurrence or all-cause mortality. The data were analyzed with propensity score matching, Kaplan–Meier survival, and Cox multivariate analyses as appropriate.Results: After propensity score matching, there were 672 patients in each group. The median follow-up period was 69 months (interquartile range: 68–70 months) for all patients. Five-year overall survival was 75.7% (95% confidence interval (CI) 72.4–79.1) in the TIVA group and 71.8% (68.4–75.4) in the INHA group (p = 0.160) (hazard ratio (HR), 0.86; 95% CI, 0.70–1.06; p = 0.158), and five-year recurrence-free survival was 68.5% (65.0–72.2) and 62.7% (59.1–66.5 (p = 0.108) (HR, 0.90; 95% CI, 0.75–1.08; p = 0.253), respectively. Subgroup analyses showed there were no significant difference in the overall survival or recurrence-free survival between the two groups in each TNM stage of NSCLC. The independent risk factors included age ≥60 years, male, blood transfusion, segmental/wedge resection and pneumonectomy, thoracotomy, postoperative complications, lung adenocarcinoma, TNM stages, high CEA and CYFRA211 levels, and postoperative radiotherapy.Conclusions: Our data indicated no difference between the propofol-based TIVA and sevoflurane-based INHA in terms of five-year overall survival and recurrence-free survival after NSCLC surgery.

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