Patients with sarcoma, mental health disorders may have poor outcomes
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Key takeaways:
- Patients with a mental health diagnosis who undergo surgery for bone or soft tissue sarcoma may have poor outcomes.
- These patients were at increased risk for prolonged stays, readmissions and infections.
Published results showed patients with a mental health diagnosis who undergo surgery for bone or soft tissue sarcoma may be at risk for longer hospital stays, readmission and surgical site infection.
MaKenzie M. Chambers, MD, a medical student at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University in New Jersey, and colleagues performed a retrospective review of data from 356 patients who underwent surgical treatment of a bone or soft tissue sarcoma between January 2010 and December 2021.
According to the study, 140 patients had a documented mental health diagnosis, such as depression, anxiety, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. Researchers compared outcomes with a cohort of 216 patients who had no such mental health diagnoses.
Overall, Chambers and colleagues found patients with a mental health diagnosis had a longer median length of stay (5.5 nights vs. 2 nights), increased rates of 90-day readmissions (36% vs. 25%) and increased rates of surgical site infection (14% vs. 9%) compared with patients without a mental health diagnosis.
Chambers and colleagues also found significantly higher 90-day readmission rates for the 34 patients who received their mental health diagnosis during treatment for sarcoma compared with patients who had a longstanding diagnosis (29.4% vs. 15.8%).
“Given the rising prevalence of mental health disorders nationwide, orthopedic surgeons should be aware of differences in postoperative outcomes between patients with sarcoma with and without mental illness,” Chambers and colleagues wrote in the study. “These findings should not discourage or delay patients from undergoing surgical intervention, but rather raise awareness among the health care team to counsel patients on appropriate perioperative expectations.”
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