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Overlapping surgery may not increase perioperative complication risk
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Results published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery showed additional perioperative risk for complications was not introduced when overlapping inpatient orthopedic surgery was performed.
With overlapping surgery defined as two skin incisions open simultaneously for one surgeon, Christopher J. Dy, MD, and colleagues compared patients who underwent overlapping surgery with those who underwent non-overlapping surgery for all inpatient orthopedic surgical procedures performed at five academic institutions from January 2015 to December 2015. Researchers identified the occurrence of perioperative complication within 30 days of the surgical procedure as the primary outcome. All-cause 30-day readmission, length of stay and mortality were considered the secondary outcomes.
Results showed overlapping surgery occurred in 40% of 14,135 cases. The overlapping surgery group had a 1% frequency of perioperative complications vs. 2% in the non-overlapping surgery group, researchers noted. Researchers also found the overlapping surgery group had reduced odds of perioperative complications and was non-inferior to the non-overlapping surgery group. Patients in the overlapping surgery group had a significantly lower chance of all-cause 30-day readmission and shorter length of stay, according to results, with no differences in mortality between the two groups.
“In our study, overlapping surgery was not associated with an increase in immediate perioperative complications for selected inpatient orthopedic surgeries at five academic centers,” Dy told Healio.com/Orthopedics. “It is paramount that surgeons discuss the possibility of overlapping surgery with patients as part of the informed consent process.” – by Casey Tingle
Disclosures: Dy reports he received grants from the NIH and Washington University Orthopedic Clinical Research Center. Please see the full study for a list of all other authors’ relevant financial disclosures.
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