Presurgical Screening of Asymptomatic Patients Undergoing Maxillofacial Surgery in the Wake of COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

A novel Coronavirus (COVID-19), distinguished in Wuhan City at the end of December 2019, is producing a rapidly progressing health crisis in the world due to this number of patients are increasing and treating them is becoming a dilemma. Asymptomatic patient, COVID-19 can pose a problem and risk for both health care worker and other patients. Objective: To Identify Asymptomatic COVID-19 Patients Coming For Maxillofacial Surgery and developing a management plan for these patients. Methods: This cross sectional study was conducted at a Oral & Maxillofacial Surgery Clinic in a Private setting of Lahore, From 1st March 2020 to 30 June 2020, for a period of 04 months. Total of 55 Patients were considered according to age, gender, trauma and pathology ; patients were screened using PCR and chest x-ray. Patients were treated according to protocol proposed. Results: The mean age of patients was 33.41 ± 11.34 years. There were 34 (61.81%) male patients and 21 (38.1%) female patient. Cause of admission was oral and maxillofacial trauma, oral cancer, orthognathic surgery and oroantral fistula. Among these 40(72.72 %) patient tested positive despite being asymptomatic, 15 (27.27 %) tested negative for COVID-19 PCR. Chest x-ray of 26(47.27%) patients shows mild changes while 29(52.57%) showed normal chest x-ray. Conclusion: Asymptomatic patient of COVID-19 pose a risk to high risk maxillofacial surgery procedures. Proper screening should be performed and proposed management plan should be followed to decrease transmission.