Major ambulatory surgery in breast diseases

Area of Science:

• Oncology
• Surgical Oncology
• Health Services Research

Background:

• Ambulatory surgery (AS) for breast pathology (BP) is increasingly utilized.
• Evaluating the quality and safety of AS for BP is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze patient data for breast surgery within an ambulatory setting in 2017.
• To assess the quality and safety of ambulatory breast surgery.

Main Methods:

• Retrospective review of breast surgeries performed in an AS program from January to December 2017.
• Analysis included patient numbers, exclusion reasons, procedure types, substitution rates (SR), conversion to admission rates, complications, and patient satisfaction.
• Comparison with data from 2013.

Main Results:

• In 2017, 396 procedures for BP were performed (170 benign, 226 malignant).
• The overall SR was 72.8% (benign 93.4%, malignant 57.2%, an increase from 45.4% in 2013).
• Unexpected hospitalization rates were 14.1% for malignant and 0.6% for benign pathologies. Hospitalized malignant cases had higher complications (17%) than ambulatory patients (8.5%) or benign cases (6.5%).

Conclusions:

• The substitution rate for malignant breast pathologies has steadily increased.
• Unexpected hospitalizations are linked to perioperative sentinel lymph node biopsy outcomes.
• Ambulatory surgery is an efficient and safe treatment modality for breast pathology.