Safety in office-based full abdominoplasty

Area of Science:

• Plastic Surgery
• Outpatient Procedures
• Patient Safety

Background:

• Increasing demand for outpatient procedures has led to more abdominoplasties in accredited outpatient facilities.
• Previous studies on outpatient abdominoplasties had small cohorts and did not differentiate procedure types or exclusively focus on same-day discharge patients.

Purpose of the Study:

• To review a case series of patients undergoing full abdominoplasty in an outpatient setting with same-day discharge.
• To assess the safety and complication rates of outpatient abdominoplasty.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective review of 319 consecutive patients undergoing full abdominoplasty between 1992 and 2010.
• Analysis of a sub-cohort of 206 patients with complete electronic medical records.
• Collection of demographic, operative, and postoperative data, including systemic and local complications and revision rates.

Main Results:

• No systemic complications (deep venous thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, blood transfusion, intra-abdominal perforation, death) were observed in the entire series.
• The most frequent local complication was seroma, occurring in 19.4% of patients.

Conclusions:

• Full abdominoplasty can be safely performed in an outpatient setting with same-day discharge, with no systemic complications.
• The findings suggest a need to re-evaluate the perception of abdominoplasty as the plastic surgery procedure with the highest risk of venous thromboembolism.