Background: An increasing number of COVID-19 patients worldwide will probably need tracheostomy in an emergency or at the recovering stage of COVID-19. We explored the safe and effective management of tracheostomy in COVID-19 patients, to benefit patients and protect health care workers at the same time.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 11 hospitalized COVID-19 patients undergoing tracheostomy. Clinical features of patients, ventilator withdrawal after tracheostomy, surgical complications, and nosocomial infection of the health care workers associated with the tracheostomy were analyzed.
Results: The tracheostomy of all the 11 cases (100%) was performed successfully, including percutaneous tracheostomy of 6 cases (54.5%) and conventional open tracheostomy of 5 cases (45.5%). No severe postoperative complications occurred, and no health care workers associated with the tracheostomy are confirmed to be infected by SARS-CoV-2.
Conclusion: Comprehensive evaluation before tracheostomy, optimized procedures during tracheostomy, and special care after tracheostomy can make the tracheostomy safe and beneficial in COVID-19 patients.
Keywords: COVID-19; nosocomial infection; open; percutaneous; tracheostomy.
© 2020 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.