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Study: Anesthesia duration not linked to injury risk for outpatient facial plastic surgery

Ambulatory Safety Monitor, January 19, 2006

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A new study shows the time patients spend under anesthesia during outpatient facial plastic surgery does not appear to have any correlation to an increase in risk of injury or death, according to a press release from the American Medical Association.

The study, published in the January issue of Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery, looked at 1,200 patients who had facial plastic surgery performed by a board-certified surgeon between July 1995 and February 2005. Of those, 1,032 were under anesthesia for more than 240 minutes.

Each patient was monitored the day after surgery, and the rate of complications was similar between patients in the shorter and longer anesthesia groups.

The study's results come after several high-profile patient deaths took place in office-based plastic surgery facilities. According to the press release, these deaths have led state regulatory agencies and medical boards to develop policies regarding the procedures performed in office-based settings, including some states mandating that any surgeries longer than 240 minutes be performed in an inpatient facility.

"Contrary to reports that longer procedure duration causes a higher incidence of intractable postoperative nausea, vomiting and pain, thus necessitating higher precautionary hospitalization rates if performed in the office-based environment, we had no cases with any of these complications," the authors of the study said, according to the press release.

"Overall, we had no cases of major morbidity in which procedure duration was directly related to the complication or in which inpatient care would have prevented major morbidity events from occurring or being treated optimally," the authors said in the release.

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