Abstract
Background The worldwide impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is unprecedented. Among the aerosol generating procedures, bronchoscopy in particular is an indispensable diagnostic and therapeutic tool that comes with a high risk of infection. Therefore, national societies have issued guidance statements. However, the individual ability of bronchoscopy units to follow these recommendations is largely unknown.
Methods We conducted a nationwide survey from 1 April 2020 to 7 April 2020 to which 218 German endoscopy units, 105 solely bronchoscopy and 113 interdisciplinary, responded. The survey was distributed electronically via the German Respiratory Society.
Results While 17% of units did not cancel any interventions, 16% cancelled >80% of their interventions. 73% were unable to completely separate high-risk patients. Most procedural measures, such as risk stratification in patients (95%), training to handle COVID-19 patients and personal protective equipment (PPE) (91%), risk adapted use of PPE (85%) and self-monitoring for staff (84%) were adopted well. Unit managers expected shortages in PPE (74%), staff shortages (68%) and severe financial losses (63%).
Conclusion In the short-term, PPE shortages are perceived to be the most imminent threat to bronchoscopic activity as a whole. In this era of uncertainty, sound evidence to guide bronchoscopy units and an international concerted effort are urgently needed to formulate recommendations on facts and adapted to local conditions as described in this study.
Abstract
Bronchoscopy units were partly prepared for the #COVID19 pandemic. However, sound evidence to guide units and an international concerted effort are urgently needed to formulate recommendations for future pandemics. https://bit.ly/2B8WOPe
Footnotes
Author contributions: J. Garbe, S. Eisenmann and J. Rosendahl conceived, designed and directed the study. C.S. Heidemann, J. Garbe, S. Eisenmann, K. Darwiche and J. Rosendahl drafted and revised the manuscript with substantial help from P. Michl. J. Garbe, C.S. Heideemann and M. Damm performed statistical work and contentual review of survey responses. S. Walter guided the survey conception. All other co-authors helped to develop and disseminate the survey. All authors approved the final manuscript and contributed critical revisions to its intellectual content.
This article has supplementary material available from openres.ersjournals.com
Data availability: Full data are provided in table S1.
Conflict of interest: C.S. Heidemann has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: J. Garbe has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: M. Damm has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: S. Walter has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: P. Michl has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: J. Rosendahl has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: K. Darwiche has nothing to disclose.
Conflict of interest: S. Eisenmann has nothing to disclose.
- Received June 18, 2020.
- Accepted June 22, 2020.
- Copyright ©ERS 2020
This article is open access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Licence 4.0.