Financial Toxicity in Emergency General Surgery: Novel Propensity-Matched Outcome Comparison

Financial toxicity describes the harmful effect of individual treatment costs and fiscal burdens that have a compounding negative impact on outcomes in surgery. While this phenomenon has been widely studied in surgical oncology, the purpose of this study was to perform a novel exploration of the impact of financial toxicity in emergency general surgery (EGS) patients throughout the US.

The Nationwide Readmissions Database for January and February 2018 was queried for all EGS patients aged 18 to 65 years. One-to-one propensity matching was performed with and without risk for financial toxicity. The primary outcome was mortality, and the secondary outcomes were venous thromboembolism (VTE), prolonged length of stay (LOS), and readmission within 30 days.

There were 24,154 EGS patients propensity matched. The mortality rate was 0.2% (n = 39), and the rate of VTE was 0.5% (n = 113). With financial toxicity, there was no statistically significant difference for mortality (p = 0.08) or VTE (p = 0.30). The rate of prolonged LOS was 6.2% (n = 824), and the risk was increased with financial toxicity (risk ratio 1.24 [1.12 to 1.37]; p < 0.001). The readmission rate was 7.0% (n = 926), and the risk with financial toxicity was increased (risk ratio 1.21 [1.10 to 1.33]; p < 0.001). The mean count of comorbidities per patient per admission during readmission within 1 year with financial toxicity was 2.1 ± 1.9 versus 1.8 ± 1.7 without (p < 0.001).

Despite little difference in the rate of mortality or VTE, EGS patients at risk for financial toxicity have an increased risk of readmission and longer LOS. Fewer comorbidities were identified at index admission than during readmission in patients at risk for financial toxicity. Future studies aimed at reducing this compounding effect of financial toxicity and identifying missed comorbidities have the potential to improve EGS outcomes.