Covid's Relationship With Surgery: It's Complicated

Mortality Risk Up Many Fold If Op Done Within 6 Weeks: Study

- DurgeshNandan Jha

New Delhi: It’s better to delay surgery, except for emergencies, if you have been diagnosed with Covid-19 recently. A new study shows that people who undergo surgery within six weeks of being Covid-positive are more than two-and-ahalf times more likely to pass away compared with those who don’t have the infection.

The risk goes up further if the time of surgery is closer to the diagnosis of Covid-19, the study published in the medical journal Anaesthesia says. The analysis was based on over 1.4 lakh surgeries conducted in 1,674 hospitals in 116 countries. This included 56 hospitals from India, including All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

Dr Shilpa Sharma, who led the study from AIIMS, told TOI, “While it is a known fact that SARS-CoV-2 infection during surgery increases the mortality risk, this is the first time a study has given evidence about the least amount of time delay in surgeries that would optimise final outcomes.”