Digestive and liver disease : official journal of the Italian Society of Gastroenterology and the Italian Association for the Study of the Liver
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The new corona virus disease has started in Wuhan - China at the end of 2019 and quickly spread with a pandemic trend across the rest of the world. The scientific community is making an extraordinary effort to study and control the situation, but the results are just partial. ⋯ In addition, some other important indications are given to reduce the risk of contamination of healthcare providers during endoscopic activities, in the setting of a pandemic. Nevertheless, because of the very quick evolution of our knowledge on this issue, these recommendations must be considered as evolving, because they could change in a short time.
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Editorial Comment
Covid-19 and cancer patients: Choosing wisely is the key.
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Coronavirus disease 2019 has been recently classified as pandemic infection by the World Health Organization. Patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) are invited to follow the national recommendations as any other person. ⋯ When clinical conditions and the disease activity do not allow a treatment delay, before starting a biological therapy, screening of IBD patients for COVID-19 active infection by RT-PCR should be advisable, even in absence of clinical suspicion. Serum antibody testing, when available, could provide evidence of infection as well as identify patients already immune to the disease.
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A dramatic SARS-Cov-2 outbreak is hitting Italy hard. To face the new scenario all the hospitals have been re-organised in order to reduce all the outpatient services and to devote almost all their personnel and resources to the management of Covid-19 patients. ⋯ In these days a re-organization of the endoscopic unit, sited in a high-incidence area, has been adopted, with changes to logistics, work organization and patients selection. With the present manuscript, we want to support gastroenterologists and endoscopists in the organization of a "new" endoscopy unit that responds to the "new" scenario, while remaining fully aware that resources, availability and local circumstances may extremely vary from unit to unit.