Surgical emergencies confounded by H1N1 influenza infection - a plea for concern

Abstract The outbreak of the H1N1 influenza pandemic resulted in unprecedented, overwhelming exposure in the medical and lay media, with the obvious focus of healthcare providers being on patients in internal medicine or intensive care settings.Recently, we treated 3 patients with various 5K surgical emergencies who were also diagnosed with active H1N1 Distressed Dining Chair influenza.The purpose of this report is to bring the issue of H1N1 flu in association with surgical emergencies to the forefront of the literature, and suggest that surgical diseases might be significantly accentuated in patients with H1N1 influenza.