TY  - JOUR
A1  - Weiß, Roxanne
A1  - Guchlerner, Leon
A1  - Loth, Andreas German
A1  - Leinung, Martin
A1  - Wicker, Sabine
A1  - Kempf, Volkhard A. J.
A1  - Berger, Annemarie
A1  - Rabenau, Holger
A1  - Ciesek, Sandra
A1  - Stöver, Timo
A1  - Diensthuber, Marc
T1  - Typical symptoms of common otorhinolaryngological diseases may mask a SARS-CoV-2 infection
T2  - European archives of oto-rhino-laryngology and head & neck
N2  - Purpose: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) replicates predominantly in the upper respiratory tract and is primarily transmitted by droplets and aerosols. Taking the medical history for typical COVID-19 symptoms and PCR-based SARS-CoV-2 testing have become established as screening procedures. The aim of this work was to describe the clinical appearance of SARS-CoV-2-PCR positive patients and to determine the SARS-CoV-2 contact risk for health care workers (HCW).
Methods: The retrospective study included n = 2283 SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests from n = 1725 patients with otorhinolaryngological (ORL) diseases performed from March to November 2020 prior to inpatient treatment. In addition, demographic data and medical history were assessed.
Results: n = 13 PCR tests (0.6%) were positive for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. The positive rate showed a significant increase during the observation period (p < 0.01). None of the patients had clinical symptoms that led to a suspected diagnosis of COVID-19 before PCR testing. The patients were either asymptomatic (n = 4) or had symptoms that were interpreted as symptoms typical of the ORL disease or secondary diagnoses (n = 9).
Conclusion: The identification of SARS-CoV-2-positive patients is a considerable challenge in clinical practice. Our findings illustrate that taking a medical history alone is of limited value and cannot replace molecular SARS-CoV-2 testing, especially for patients with ORL diseases. Our data also demonstrate that there is a high probability of contact with SARS-CoV-2-positive patients in everyday clinical practice, so that the use of personal protective equipment, even in apparently “routine cases”, is highly recommended.
KW  - COVID-19
KW  - SARS-CoV-2
KW  - Pandemic
KW  - Health care workers
KW  - Otorhinolaryngological
KW  - Medical history
Y1  - 2021
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/81314
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-813145
SN  - 1434-4726
N1  - Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
VL  - 278
IS  - 9
SP  - 3551
EP  - 3558
PB  - Berlin ; Heidelberg
CY  - Springer
ER  -