Covid 19 and orthopaedic surgery in a large trauma centre in India

Abstract

Background - We are in the midst of a pandemic caused by the novel SARS-Cov-2 virus. A large percentage of the patients are asymptomatic and hospitals around the world are struggling to restart routine services. We report the results of a universal testing protocol of all patients who underwent orthopaedic surgery in the month of July 2020 in a large orthopaedic speciality hospital in Bangalore, India. Methods - A retrospective study of all patients who underwent orthopaedic surgery in the month of July 2020 at a tertiary care orthopaedic speciality hospital in Bangalore, India. All patients underwent nasopharyngeal swab test before surgery. A questionnaire was used to assess the patient before the RT-PCR nasopharyngeal swab test. Data regarding imaging, investigations and follow up was recorded. Results - In the month of July 2020, 168 patients underwent routine nasopharyngeal RT -PCR swab test for COVID - 19 prior to planned orthopaedic surgical procedure (Both trauma and elective cases). 16 of the RT-PCR tests were positive. However vascular cases and absolute emergencies were done without a RT -PCR test with PPE and all universal precautions. 11 patients underwent emergency surgery without a RT-PCR test. All 16 cases who were positive were asymptomatic. The asymptomatic positive rate was 9.52%. Of the 11 patients who underwent emergency surgery without a RT-PCR test, only one patient had a positive test post - operatively. Conclusions - Routine nasopharyngeal RT-PCR testing revealed a high rate of asymptomatic cases. If the RT-PCR test is positive, it is best to defer the case till the test returns negative. All precautions must be taken while performing emergency surgeries. Our algorithm in managing patients has proven to be effective and can be replicated with ease to continue operating and taking care of orthopaedic patients during this pandemic.

Introduction and Advancements in Room Temperature Ferromagnetic Metal Oxide Semiconductors for Enhanced Photocatalytic Performance

“…Versatile Property Manipulation: Metal oxide semiconductor NPs allow for the precise tuning of properties, ranging from bandgap to surface chemistry and charge carrier dynamics. This tunability empowers researchers to craft materials that precisely match specific needs, making them invaluable in tailoring materials for desired functionalities across domains [24].…”

Biodiversity and monthly density fluctuations of water mites in Khankra gad, a spring-fed tributary of river Alaknanda, Pauri Garhwal in Uttarakhand, India

“…Kumar and Dobriyal (1992) studied the water mite fauna from Garhwal streams for the first time. A significant contribution to taxonomy of hill stream water mites of the Garhwal region have been made by Kumar et al (2006Kumar et al ( , 2007, Pesic et al (2007a,b), Pesic and Panesar (2008), Pesic et al (2012), Pesic et al, (2019a,b) and Pesic et al, (2020a,b). Bahuguna et al (2019 for spring-fed water; 2020-for glacier-fed water) carried out extensive work on the hill stream mite species' density and diversity.…”