A Contemporary Analysis of Pediatric Urology Surgical Volume at a Tertiary Care Center

To describe the annual volume of pediatric urology cases in an academic, tertiary care setting.

A retrospective review was performed of all patients operated on by 4 pediatric urologists (total of 2.5 full-time equivalents) at an academic, tertiary care center with a free-standing children's hospital from 2016 to 2017 (24 months). Basic case information was collected from operative reports. Descriptive statistics are reported using nonparametric methods. "Uncommon" was defined a priori as occurring <10% of the time.

During the entire study period, 2718 patients underwent 4580 procedures. This equated to 1088 patients and 1832 procedures per full-time equivalent. Median age at surgery was 3.2 years (IQR 0.8-10) and 757 (16.5%) of patients were female. Most procedures were elective (4406, 96.2%) and did not require postoperative admission (3842, 83.9%). Urgent and emergent cases were uncommon (174, 3.8%). Most cases were classified as general pediatric urology (3894, 85%) with 319 (7%) classified as major reconstruction, 275 (6%) as laparoscopy/endourology and 92 (2%) as oncology. The most common cases involved the groin/scrotum (1415, 30.9%), prepuce (809, 17.7%), phallus (802, 17.5%), and endoscopy (652, 14.2%). All other case types were uncommon.

This description of an academic pediatric urology practice at a tertiary care center with a free-standing children's hospital noted a high volume of elective, outpatient procedures that are largely general pediatric urology. Uncommon cases include urgent/emergent interventions, major reconstruction, laparoscopy/endourology, and oncology procedures.