Elective surgeries were largely put on hold during phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the fact of the matter is that some surgeries can’t be delayed until the pandemic is over. That’s particularly true for patients with ankle fractures, as they need to have their ankle addressed quickly in order to avoid potentially catastrophic complications.
We’re also in a phase of the pandemic where we can test patients upon their arrival to the emergency room or surgery center for COVID-19 and have the results in an hour or less so that providers can take the right precautions in the event the patient is positive for COVID. Because of the availability of rapid testing, researchers are now able to gather more research on surgeries performed on COVID-positive patients and compare their outcomes to the general public. Recently, they found that patients who tested positive for COVID were more likely to have worse outcomes following ankle fracture surgery than those who did not have COVID at the time of their ankle fracture operation.
In other words, you don’t want COVID if you need emergency surgery.
COVID And Ankle Fracture Surgery
For the study, researchers were able to track 9,835 patients who underwent ankle fracture surgery between April 1st, 2020 and June 15th, 2020. 57 patients were identified as COVID-positive at their time of their ankle fracture repair operation. Those 57 patients were matched to 57 control patients of similar demographics and variables, and the results of surgeries were tracked.
After looking at the data, researchers found that patients who were COVID-positive were more likely to experience:
- A minor adverse event (3.1 times more likely)
- A serious adverse event (5.48 times more likely)
- Any adverse event (3.89 times more likely)
The study stopped short of explaining exactly why COVID-positive patients were more likely to suffer adverse events, but that’s due in part to the fact that we’re still learning about this virus each and every day. We know that COVID has a significant impact on many bodily systems, so it should not come as a surprise that your surgical outcomes tend to be worse if your body is simultaneously trying to fight off the virus and recover from the physical trauma of surgery.