Bone sarcoma surgery in times of COVID‐19 pandemic lockdown‐early experience from a tertiary centre in India

Kumar, Venkatesan Sampath; Banjara, Roshan; Thapa, Sushma; Majeed, Abdul; Kapoor, Love; Janardhanan, Ritvik; Bakhshi, Sameer; Kumar, Vijay; Malhotra, Rajesh; Khan, Shah Alam

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) lockdown has presented a unique challenge for sarcoma care. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the early results and feasibility of surgeries for bone sarcomas during the COVID‐19 lockdown. METHODS: Our prospectively collected orthopaedic oncological database was reviewed to include two groups of patients‐ those who underwent surgery in the immediate 4 weeks before lockdown (non‐lockdown group) and those operated in the first 4 weeks of lockdown (lockdown group). All patients were followed‐up clinically and telephonically to collect the outcome data. RESULTS: Out of the 91 patients who qualified for inclusion, fifty were classified into the non‐lockdown group while 41 patients formed the lockdown group. Both the groups were comparable with respect to baseline demographic parameters. However, during the lockdown period 37 patients (90%) had undergone a major surgical intervention as against 24 patients (48%) in the non‐lockdown group (P < .001). There was no significant difference in type of anaesthesia, median estimated blood loss and procedure duration. None of the patients/health care workers had evidence of severe acute respiratory syndrome‐coronavirus 2 infection at 15 days follow‐up. CONCLUSION: Our study results suggest that appendicular bone tumours can be safely operated with adequate precautions during the lockdown period.