Dear Editor,
We would like to thank you for the opportunity to respond to the comments made by Professor Wiwanitkit and would like to thank him for his interest and time.
Our manuscript was a small case series highlighting the important message that COVID‐19 infection in itself should not necessarily preclude urgent cardiac surgery. Of course, as Professor Wiwanitkit has rightly mentioned this requires adequate preoperative and postoperative management. We have recently submitted an article that is currently in production to the Journal of Cardiac Surgery which outlines these very points in detail at every step of the patient pathway. Preoperative isolation, anesthetic precautions and postoperative management to reduce the risk of COVID‐19 transmission are all detailed in this manuscript. We hope you will have the opportunity to review this article once it is published. 1
REFERENCE
- 1.Hussain A, Balmforth D, Yates M, et al. The Pan London Emergency Cardiac Surgery Service: coordinating a response to the COVID‐19 pandemic. J Card Surg. In press. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed]