Endoscopy at Bedside in Isolated Patients with Severe COVID-19: Our Approach during the Pandemic

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the management of emergency medicine and those complications that needed interventional procedures, such as endoscopy or other radiological procedures. At the beginning of the outbreak, there were no exploitable recommendations regarding the proper policy to apply for limiting the virus spread during endoscopy. Between the first and the second wave, the approach regarding interventional procedures changed, due to higher awareness and newly defined protocols, even if different among the health centers. Patients with severe COVID-19 may develop major gastrointestinal complications or require nutritional support, so interventional procedures are required at bedside, even if patients are in isolated rooms. Our tertiary center admitted 95 patients with severe COVID-19 at our ICU-dedicated department until May 2021, and 56% of them died. Among them, 61 endoscopic procedures were performed, mainly gastroscopies (81.96%) followed by colonoscopies (11.47%) and other more advanced procedures (6.55%). Our approach aimed to adapt and create COVID-related protocols, dedicated itineraries, and rooms in a separate department with the prospect to easily organize complete and safe endoscopic theaters at the COVID-ICU department.