• Daniel M Aaronson, David M Poetker, Christopher M Long, and Nathan T Zwagerman.
• Department of Neurosurgery, Medical College of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Electronic address: daaronson@mcw.edu.
• World Neurosurg. 2021 Aug 1; 152: 808380-83.

BackgroundThe respiratory illness identified as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has resulted in a pandemic illness that has changed the face of healthcare. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, patients have continued to require neurosurgical interventions, and the endoscopic endonasal approach for surgery has continued to be a mainstay treatment of pituitary tumors and anterior skull base lesions.MethodsWe sought to highlight the current lack of recommendations regarding testing protocols for neurosurgical patients.ResultsWe implemented a novel testing protocol for our patient populations at increased risk and have proposed a model that can be used at other institutions to mitigate the risk of complications associated with some forms of COVID-19 testing.ConclusionPatients with anterior skull base defects may be at risk with current COVID-19 testing protocols, and may benefit from alternative specimen collection strategies.Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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