Management of COVID-19 from the pulmonologist’s perspective: a narrative review

ABSTRACT

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has provided global challenges to health-care facilities in ensuring the delivery of care to patients. Tremendous international collaboration has enabled the swift formulation of evidence-based guidelines that aim to clarify day-to-day issues faced by physicians and other health-care providers on the frontlines.

Areas covered: In order to provide answers to the common questions and dilemmas faced by physicians and policymakers, especially those handling pulmonary manifestations of COVID-19, the authors made a list of pertinent clinical topics that were reviewed between 21st of August, 2020 to 30th of August, 2020 by the authors using online databases that included PubMed, EBSCO, and the Cochrane Library. Literature was reviewed and included based on relevance to the topics selected. The review was aimed to serve as a quick reference for addressing practical issues faced during patient care in the ongoing pandemic with a brief account of the management of COVID-19 patients as per international guidelines.

Expert opinion: As more evidence continues to generate regarding the optimal methods of managing COVID-19 cases while caring for non-COVID patients concurrently, physicians will need to constantly reeducate themselves to keep pace with a rapidly evolving landscape of therapeutic options.

KEYWORDS:

• Bronchoscopy
• covid-19
• nebulization
• out-patient
• ppe
• ventilation

Article highlights

• •COVID-19 infection has created unique challenges in the delivery of health care populations.

• •Evidence-based practice guidelines are rapidly being updated to provide suggestions regarding the best practices in the current times.

• •There is an urgent need for change in the modes of health-care delivery with emphasis on strict infection control at all levels to minimize the risk of transmission.

• •Care of non-COVID patients can continue while minimizing disruptions by observing adequate precautions.

• •Systemic corticosteroids, anticoagulants, and remdesivir have been added to the available armamentarium against COVID-19 with an improvement in outcomes.

Declaration of interest

The authors declare that this paper was not funded or sponsored by any agency. The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Disclosure statement

No, potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.