Utility of Preoperative Laboratory Testing for Ambulatory Endoscopic Sinonasal Surgery in Low-Risk Patients

Preoperative laboratory tests (PLTs) are often obtained prior to outpatient surgical procedures. The objective of this study is to examine the current practice of routine PLT in low-risk patients undergoing ambulatory endoscopic sinonasal surgery (ESS) and to assess whether such testing impacts surgical outcomes.

Patients undergoing ambulatory ESS were identified from the 2011 to 2018 NSQIP database. Low-risk patients were defined as American Society of Anesthesiologist class 1 or 2. PLTs were grouped into hematologic, chemistry, coagulation, and liver function tests. Chi-square analyses and independent samples t-tests were conducted to compare categoric and continuous variables, respectively.

A total of 664 cases met the inclusion criteria, of which 419 (62.1%) underwent at least one PLT. Of these, the most frequent PLT obtained was a complete blood cell count (92.4%). Major complications occurred in 1.5% of patients. There were no statistically significant differences in overall postoperative complications between those with and without PLT (P = .264). Specifically, no significant difference was seen in the incidence of postoperative bleeding (P = .184), urinary tract infection (P = .444), pulmonary embolism (P = .444), or wound infection (P = .701). On multivariable analyses, PLT status was not significantly associated with any complication (P = .097) or unplanned readmission (P = .898).

Our analysis did not reveal an association between the use of PLT and postoperative morbidity or unplanned readmission in low-risk patients undergoing outpatient ESS.