Safe and effective management of tracheostomy in COVID‐19 patients

Zhang, Xiaomeng; Huang, Qiling; Niu, Xun; Zhou, Tao; Xie, Zhen; Zhong, Yi; Xiao, Hongjun

BACKGROUND: An increasing number of COVID‐19 patients worldwide will probably need tracheostomy in an emergency or at the recovering stage of COVID‐19. We explored the safe and effective management of tracheostomy in COVID‐19 patients, to benefit patients and protect health care workers at the same time. METHODS: We retrospectively analyzed 11 hospitalized COVID‐19 patients undergoing tracheostomy. Clinical features of patients, ventilator withdrawal after tracheostomy, surgical complications, and nosocomial infection of the health care workers associated with the tracheostomy were analyzed. RESULTS: The tracheostomy of all the 11 cases (100%) was performed successfully, including percutaneous tracheostomy of 6 cases (54.5%) and conventional open tracheostomy of 5 cases (45.5%). No severe postoperative complications occurred, and no health care workers associated with the tracheostomy are confirmed to be infected by SARS‐CoV‐2. CONCLUSION: Comprehensive evaluation before tracheostomy, optimized procedures during tracheostomy, and special care after tracheostomy can make the tracheostomy safe and beneficial in COVID‐19 patients.