key: cord-0028104-6ucsfop1 authors: Balaji, S. M. title: S-gene Dropout and False-negative Reverse Transcriptase-polymerase Chain Reaction Tests date: 2022-02-01 journal: Ann Maxillofac Surg DOI: 10.4103/ams.ams_2_22 sha: 774c6c66d0029403d2388b2bf6bb402993be0bfd doc_id: 28104 cord_uid: 6ucsfop1 nan The past waves of COVID-19 have caused a huge impact on the practice, teaching, and research in maxillofacial surgery. The need to prioritize precious medical resources, especially when the trained medical professionals are low, diversion of health-care professionals, and deferring of planned and elective procedures have their own toll on overall long-term well-being of health. Education and training of residents have been drastically altered. All these have their impact. [4] India also has experienced its own share of drastic alterations in clinical practice. The need to alter the traditional way of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery practice is necessitated by the COVID-19. [5] The aerosol released in dental operatory and its way of spread has a direct bearing on the spread of the infection. [6] The higher transmissibility of the OMICRON, the caution fatigue, possible negative RT-PCR test results, current poor understanding of the nature of immune response to OMICRON variant, and possible long-COVID-19 infection could contribute to the risk of maxillofacial surgery. [7] [8] [9] The international surgical teams have come out with their version of OMICRON threat assessment and action plan. [10] The need for another dose of vaccination is also debated. [11] Considering the large degree of unknown, a maxillofacial surgeon needs to exercise caution, revisit his/her treatment approach, enhance barrier techniques, and ensure that proper COVID-19 appropriate behaviors are religiously followed. Given the rapid transmissibility and evasion of immunity, being cautious would definitely pay in the longer run. Hospital, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India. E-mail: smbalaji@gmail.com Omicron-panic mongering or appropriate caution? COVID-19: Omicron may be more transmissible than other variants and partly resistant to existing vaccines, scientists fear Genetic variants of SARS-CoV-2-what do they mean? Impact of COVID-19 on maxillofacial surgery practice: A systematic review Impact of COVID-19 on oral and maxillofacial surgery practice in India: A national survey A spatiotemporally resolved infection risk model for airborne transmission of COVID-19 variants in indoor spaces Long COVID-19 and dental treatment COVID-19 and maxillofacial surgery Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant: Reasons of emergence and lessons learnt Dropout and False-negative Reverse Transcriptase-polymerase Chain Reaction Tests Balaji: S-gene dropout and false negative RT-PCR tests Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) of SARS-CoV-2: Threat assessment and plan of action Highly mutated SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant sparks significant concern among global experts -What is known so far This is an open access journal, and articles are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License, which allows others to remix, tweak, and build upon the work non-commercially, as long as appropriate credit is given and the new creations are licensed under the identical terms.How to cite this article: Balaji SM. S-gene dropout and false-negative reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction tests. Ann Maxillofac Surg 2021;11:217-8.