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Erschienen in:
17.02.2020 | Original Paper
Pediatric upper extremity surgery: BMI is not associated with increased complication rate
Erschienen in: European Journal of Plastic Surgery | Ausgabe 4/2020
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Background
While the effect of body mass index (BMI) on upper extremity surgical outcomes has been investigated in adults, limited data exists in the pediatric population. We sought to identify the complication rate in pediatric upper extremity surgery and determine the effect of BMI on complication rates.
Methods
Subjects were pediatric patients that underwent reconstructive surgery between 2005 and 2011. BMI percentiles were classified as: underweight (< 5th percentile), healthy weight (5th–< 85th percentile), overweight (85th–< 95th percentile), or obese (≥ 95th percentile). Postoperative complications included wound infection, partial wound dehiscence, hematoma/seroma formation, tissue expander exposure, flap coverage, short- or long-term dressing, observation, hospital admission, reoperation, and death. Complication rates were compared using Chi-square analysis.
Results
We identified 182 patients who underwent 269 operations that comprised 805 procedures. Subjects included 88 females (48.35%) and 94 males (51.65%), with an average age of 13.02 years. Average number of procedures per operation was 2.99. Of the 805 procedures, 47 (5.84%) included at least one postoperative complication. The most common complication was partial wound dehiscence (2.98%), followed by need for short term dressing (1.86%) and observation of tissue expander (1.37%). Only 9 procedures (1.12%) required reoperation. BMI was not a predictor of postoperative complication rates (p = 0.669).
Conclusions
In our pediatric patient population, BMI was not a significant risk factor for postoperative complications. Our data suggests that plastic surgery of the upper extremity is safe regardless of BMI with low complication rates and no reported mortality within in our study population.
Level of evidence: Level IV, risk/prognostic study