Percutaneous tracheostomy in COVID patients. Experience in our hospital center after one year of pandemic and review of the literature.

Background: The pandemic caused by SARS-COV-2 has caused an increase in the need of tracheostomies in patients affected with respiratory distress syndrome. In this article we report our experience during a year of pandemic, we develop our surgical technique to perform percutaneous tracheostomy with the patient in apnea and we compare our results with those of other centers through a bibliographic review.

Material And Methods: A one-year retrospective clinical study was carried out on tracheotomies performed on patients admitted to the intensive care unit with severe SARS-CoV-2, with difficulty for ventilation or weaning.

Temporal headache and jaw claudication may be the key for the diagnosis of giant cell arteritis.

Background: Temporal artery biopsy (TAB) is a surgical procedure with a low positive yield. The purpose of this study is to determine which variables are the most important in the giant cell arteritis (GCA) diagnosis. The objective of this evaluation is to improve the percentage of positive temporal artery biopsy and if possible, avoid the biopsy in some cases.