Table 3.

Literature Review of Recommendations on Preoperative Testing: Professional Bodies

No.	Society/Professional Body	Recommendation on Preoperative Testing
1	Society of British Neurological Surgeons75	Preoperative COVID-19 testing should be employed when available.
2	AANS/CNS Tumour Section and Society for Neuro-Oncology76	To the extent possible, patients should receive COVID-19 testing on the day of surgery.
3	Royal College of Surgeons of England77	COVID-19 should be sought in all patients before surgery either directly via testing or through proxy indicators.
4	Hong Kong Neurosurgical Society78	Before surgery, it is prudent to ask for FTOCC (fever, travel, occupation, contact, clustering) histories and upper respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms. Body temperature checked and chest radiograph should be done. SARS-CoV-2 status should be checked by nasopharyngeal and throat swab, whenever possible.
5	American Society of Anesthesiologists and Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation79	All patients should be screened for symptoms before presenting to the health care facility. Patients reporting symptoms should be referred for additional evaluation. All other patients should undergo nucleic acid amplification testing (including PCR tests) before undergoing nonemergent surgery.
6	Professional Education Committee of the Pituitary Society80	Screening for cough, fever, and other symptoms and, if suspected, swab for testing. Consider (depending on local guidance): Isolation up to 2 weeks before surgery; paired swabs for testing and/or serological tests; chest radiograph and/or chest CT.
7	Italian Skull Base Society81	It is mandatory to test for COVID-19 in all patients who are candidates for surgery (except for emergency procedures), with at least 2 tests, repeated at a distance of 2–4 days, to minimize the possibility of false negatives. The last test must be performed within 48 hours before surgery.
8	International consensus guidelines for head and neck oncology (39 societies and professional bodies)82	Strong agreement for “COVID-19 status of a patient should be considered before surgery” and “positive laboratory test would be sufficient as a minimum criterion for diagnosis.”
9	Consensus statement from India for practice of Neurosurgery and Neurology83	Acute cases: Initial screening – Thermal screening and Rapid COVID-19 diagnostic Kit. Subacute/Chronic Cases: Initial screening – Thermal screening and Rapid COVID-19 diagnostic Kit followed by pulmonary CT scan (if available) and nucleic acid testing by RT-PCR.
10	Recommendations based on expert opinion of 4 worldwide-known neurosurgeons from 3 different continents (USA/Europe/Asia)84	Management based on preoperative COVID-19 testing, 2 times within 24 hours or CT of the chest.
11	Multicentre recommendation based on expert opinion85	Emergent: Assume COVID-19 positive. Urgent: Preoperative testing if available to be done as close as possible to surgery. Quarantine until result negative. If testing unavailable assume COVID-19 positive. Semi-urgent: test if available. If unavailable, self-quarantine for 14 days.

COVID-19, coronavirus disease; AANS/CNS, American Association or Neurological Surgeons/Congress of Neurological Surgeons; SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; CT, computed tomography; RT-PCR, reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction.