Protection of health care workers from exhaled air of patients operated under local, regional, spinal or epidural anaesthesia during COVID 19 pandemic

  1. Kuldeepsinh Pradipkumar Atodaria
  2. Mayank Singh
  3. Vimalkumar Prajapati
  4. Kush Shaileshkumar Shah
  5. Pradipkumar Raghuvirsinh Atodaria

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Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic mandates the use of N-95/FFP-2 masks for healthcare workers, especially in operation room (OR) for surgical or aerosol producing procedures. During pandemic, surgical interventions such as limb trauma, limb amputations, and limb malignancies continued to flow into the hospitals and are normally performed under local, regional or spinal anaesthesia. N-95/FFP-2 masks normally do not prevent escape of exhaled air to surrounding and to avoid the escape of exhaled unfiltered air, sealing masks by taping its edges to face possibly serves the purpose, but causes significant discomfort to patients. HEPA filters, high vacuum suction apparatus, and negative pressure operating-room may protect partially against the-risk of infection if patient’s exhaled air is infected. In order to reduce risk of transmission from patients’ exhaled air to the healthcare workers, a technique has been designed to divert the patients’ exhaled air to outside the-OR using a suction machine. This technique is easy, simple and cost-effective and trial has been performed with four-volunteers to see feasibility to breathe through N-95 mask sealed by sticking its edges to face using tape. The trial reflected reduction in SpO2, causing increased respiratory-rate, tachycardia and hypertension, in-addition an un-acclimatized volunteers had difficulty in breathing through sealed N-95 masks, which was relieved by supplying oxygen to them. Attaching suction system to remove the-exhaled air aids to comfort levels. Treating exhaled-air with sodium-hypochlorite and diverting it externally to an open-space outside the-OR added to safety for the patients, surgical team and the hospital surroundings.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.11.26.20192823: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.11.26.20192823v1 on medRxiv