Does Obstructive Sleep Apnea Affect Perioperative Complications? A Retrospective Study Using a Modified NSQIP Database

Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) has been linked to increased perioperative complications. The National Surgical Quality Improvement Project (NSQIP), which is the leading outcomes-based patient database, does not report OSA as a comorbidity. Therefore, we started recording the patient's OSA status as part of Lahey Hospital and Medical Center's (LHMC) NSQIP database in an effort to study the effect of OSA on perioperative complications.

Starting July 2013 we have been including patients' OSA status in our hospital's NSQIP database. We conducted chart review of all patients who underwent any surgical intervention at LHMC between 2013 and 2016 and identified those who had OSA as part of their medical history. We then compared their perioperative mortality and complications to a matched sample.

A total of 7872 patients were examined. In total, 739 patients had OSA bringing our prevalence to 9.4%. In total, 631 were matched to patients without OSA after adjusting for age, gender, BMI and multiple other comorbidities. We found no statistically significant difference in 30-day mortality (0.1 vs 0%), unplanned intubation (2.6 vs 1.1%), pulmonary embolism (0.5 vs 0.2%), respiratory failure requiring mechanical ventilation (2.3 vs 1.4%), cardiac arrest (0.5 vs 0.3%), myocardial infarction (0.4 vs 0.5%), surgical site infections (4.6 vs 4.3%), sepsis (2.4 vs 1.9%) and average length of stay (3.8 vs 4.2).

Patients with OSA did not have any statistically significant difference in post-op complications or mortality when compared to patients without OSA. This is the first study that tracked OSA status as part of the NSQIP database and studied its effect on perioperative complications. Randomized controlled studies are needed to conclude whether OSA status affects perioperative outcomes.