A COVID-19 Patient Who Underwent Endonasal Endoscopic Pituitary Adenoma Resection: A Case Report

BACKGROUND AND IMPORTANCE: A pituitary adenoma patient who underwent surgery in our department was diagnosed with COVID-19 and 14 medical staff were confirmed infected later. This case has been cited several times but without accuracy or entirety, we feel obligated to report it and share our thoughts on the epidemic among medical staff and performing endonasal endoscopic surgery during COVID-19 pandemic. CLINICAL PRESENTATION: The patient developed a fever 3 d post endonasal endoscopic surgery during which cerebrospinal leak occurred, and was confirmed with SARS-CoV-2 infection later. Several medical staff outside the operating room were diagnosed with COVID-19, while the ones who participated in the surgery were not. CONCLUSION: The deceptive nature of COVID-19 results from its most frequent onset symptom, fever, a cliche in neurosurgery, which makes it hard for surgeons to differentiate. The COVID-19 epidemic among medical staff in our department was deemed as postoperative rather than intraoperative transmission, and attributed to not applying sufficient personal airway protection. Proper personal protective equipment and social distancing between medical staff contributed to limiting epidemic since the initial outbreak. Emergency endonasal endoscopic surgeries are feasible since COVID-19 is still supposed to be containable when the surgeries are performed in negative pressure operating rooms with personal protective equipment and the patients are kept under quarantine postoperatively. However, we do not encourage elective surgeries during this pandemic, which might put patients in conditions vulnerable to COVID-19.