Committee Recommendations for Resuming Cardiac Surgery Activity in the SARS-CoV-2 Era: Guidance From an International Cardiac Surgery Consortium

Joanna Chikwe; Mario Gaudino; Irbaz Hameed; N Bryce Robinson; Faisal G Bakaeen; Lorenzo Menicanti; Torsten Doenst; Zhe Zheng; Massimo Lemma; Volkmar Falk; James Tatoulis; Leonard N Girardi; Stephen Fremes; Marc Ruel

doi:10.1016/j.athoracsur.2020.05.004

Committee Recommendations for Resuming Cardiac Surgery Activity in the SARS-CoV-2 Era: Guidance From an International Cardiac Surgery Consortium

Ann Thorac Surg. 2020 Aug;110(2):725-732. doi: 10.1016/j.athoracsur.2020.05.004. Epub 2020 May 15.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Cardiac Surgery, Smidt Heart Institute, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, California.
² Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York. Electronic address: [email protected].
³ Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York.
⁴ Departments of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Heart and Vascular Institute, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio.
⁵ Department of Cardiac-Surgery, Istituto di Ricovero e Cura a Carattere Scientifico Policlinico San Donato, San Donato Milanese, Milan, Italy.
⁶ Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, University Hospital Jena, Friedrich Schiller, University of Jena, Jena, Germany.
⁷ Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Fuwai Hospital, Beijing, China.
⁸ Department of Cardiac Surgery, Jilin Heart Hospital, Changchun, China.
⁹ Department of Cardiovascular Surgery, Charite, Berlin, Germany; Department of Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery, German Heartcenter Berlin, Berlin, Germany; German Center for Cardiovascular Research, Berlin, Germany; Department of Health Science and Technology, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zurich, Switzerland.
¹⁰ Royal Melbourne Hospital, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
¹¹ Schulich Heart Centre Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
¹² Division of Cardiac Surgery, University of Ottawa Heart Institute, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.

Abstract

Recommendations for the safe and optimized resumption of cardiac surgery care, research, and education during the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) era were developed by a cardiovascular research consortium, based in 19 countries and representing a wide spectrum of experience with COVID-19. This guidance document provides a framework for restarting cardiac surgery in the outpatient and inpatient settings, in accordance with the current understanding of SARS-CoV-2, the risks posed by interrupted cardiovascular care, and the available recommendations from major societies.

Publication types

Practice Guideline

MeSH terms

Betacoronavirus
COVID-19
Cardiac Surgical Procedures
Coronavirus Infections / epidemiology*
Humans
Pandemics
Pneumonia, Viral / epidemiology*
SARS-CoV-2
Thoracic Surgery / organization & administration*