ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: An efficient sampling is one of the key methods to identify all those affected by coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). OBJECTIVES: To analyze how efficient setting up of a central sampling team would be to prevent any outbreak within the institution by minimizing the movement of suspected COVID-19 patients admitted in the inpatient wards. The secondary objective was to train maximum resident doctors to collect samples of admitted patients. METHODOLOGY: A central sampling team comprising of resident doctors from various departments was made who did sampling of the suspected COVID-19 inpatients admitted under various specialties. RESULTS: There were a total of 341 patients [209 males (61.29%), 132 females (38.7%)] and 335 patients underwent sampling. There was a positive correlation between: (1) number of calls from a department vs percentage of positive samples in that department [Pearson correlation coefficient (R) = 0.47; P = 0.026], (2) number of samples taken by resident of a particular department from central sampling team vs number of positive samples taken by resident of that department [R = 0.8739, P = 0.01] and (3) number of visits to a department vs number of residents trained in that department [R = 0.93; P = 0.00001]. CONCLUSION: Formulation of a central sampling team led to changes like a separate donning and doffing area in each ward and training of many resident doctors posted in different wards. This made each ward self-sufficient in collection of samples. This venture also ensured minimal movement of suspected COVID-19 patients in the hospital and thus least exposure to the hospital staff.
ABSTRACT
A 29-year-old male patient presented with a history of voice change and feeling of a lump in throat for the last 20 years. He was tracheostomised at the age of 10 years. Endolaryngeal examination showed a mucosal bulge in supraglottic region arising predominantly from right side. He had multiple healed scar marks on neck, arms and elbows, and had dystrophic nail changes. MRI of the neck showed a supraglottic cyst covering glottis. The patient was diagnosed as a case of laryngo-onycho-cutaneous syndrome which is also known as Shabbir syndrome. He underwent supraglottic cyst excision via transoral ultrasonic surgery. Glottic scarring along with subglottic stenosis was found intraoperatively, which was released using carbon dioxide laser and finally Montgomery (MT) tube was inserted. The patient got his tracheostomy tube removed for the first time in 20 years. He tolerated corking of MT tube. He was able to breathe through nose and phonate using false cords.
