Cancellation of Elective Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, a Tertiary Hospital Experience

Cancellation of elective surgery is said to occur when a patient's name appears on the operation list, but the operation is not done on the intended date^. Cancelling elective surgeries is a long-standing problem faced by many countries worldwide. Reasons for cancellation of surgery vary from one hospital to another. The goal of this study was to identify factors associated with the cancellation of scheduled Oral and maxillofacial surgeries in the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital.

Cancellations of elective scheduled operations from January 2021 to July 2022 were reviewed retrospectively. All cancellations were recorded in a predesigned form which included information about the age of the patient, hospital identification number, date of cancellation, type of operation, the Surgeon and the Anaesthetist, preoperative anaesthetic evaluations, any associated medical problems and the presumed reasons for cancellations for in-patients and day case surgery. Patients who died before the time of their scheduled surgery were excluded.

80 patients had their operation cancelled on the day of surgery, and the rate of cancellations was 44.2%. The most common causes of cancellations were patient-related (50%), accounting for up to half of the cancellations. The major reason for cancellation under the administrative category was insufficient time in the theatre to complete the operation list (18.8%). Financial constraint (16.3%) on the day of the surgery was noted more among planned day case procedures and delayed laboratory results (12.5%); oftentimes, covid test results were the major reasons for cancellations under the patient-factors category.

The rate of cancellation in this study was high, most of which are patients related. Administrative-related reasons were also identified. However, in most cases, these cancellations can be avoided.