AB123. SOH21AS095. COVID-19 and its impact on ENT emergency services: a single institution experience
Ent/Head & Neck Session

AB123. SOH21AS095. COVID-19 and its impact on ENT emergency services: a single institution experience

Adrinda Affendi, Ryan O’Sullivan, Mohammad Habibullah Khan

Otolaryngology/Head and Neck Department, South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH), Cork, Ireland

Background: This study aims to evaluate the safety of executing various emergency ENT procedures in a single institution during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Methods: All patients (from December, 2019 up to April, 2020) that underwent an emergency ENT procedure in the ENT Emergency Department of the South Infirmary-Victoria University Hospital (SIVUH), Cork were retrospectively appraised. We developed a questionnaire and made telephonic contact with our patient cohort. Each patient was probed in relation to signs and symptoms of COVID-19. Two time periods were defined; Period 1 from 1st December, 2019 till 28th February, 2020 and Period 2 from 29th February, 2020 till 23rd April, 2020.

Results: A total of 332 patients were included in our study. 80.1% (226 patients) attended in Period 1 and 19.9% (66 patients) attended in Period 2. In Period 1, 4.5% (12 patients) reported COVID-19 symptoms within two weeks of attending and 7.6% (5 patients) reported symptoms in Period 2. Two of these patients were swabbed for COVID-19 and both swabs were negative. No member of the clinical team developed COVID-19 during the study.

Conclusions: In order to minimise the danger of aerosol generating procedures (AGPs) during the performance of emergency ENT procedures, rigorous measures were adhered to in the form of appropriate PPE and social distancing as per HSE and local Hospital guidelines.

Keywords: COVID-19; ENT; emergency procedures; aerosol generating procedure (AGP)

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Ethical Statement: The authors are accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Open Access Statement: This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits the non-commercial replication and distribution of the article with the strict proviso that no changes or edits are made and the original work is properly cited (including links to both the formal publication through the relevant DOI and the license). See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.

doi: 10.21037/map-21-ab123
Cite this abstract as: Affendi A, O’Sullivan R, Khan MH. SOH21AS095. COVID-19 and its impact on ENT emergency services: a single institution experience. Mesentery Peritoneum 2021;5:AB123.

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