A new narrative review study posted Monday on Cureus, “Patients With Obesity on the Acute Care Surgery Service: Improving Outcomes,” posits that obesity now “represents a defining characteristic of the emergency general surgery (EGS) population," and that many clinicians and health systems need to account for this reality in their care for these patients through numerous adjustments to prevent poor outcomes.
Citing “accumulating evidence,” they state that obesity, particularly of the class III, class IV, and class V varieties, is associated with “significantly worse clinical outcomes following emergency surgical intervention,” including higher rates of postoperative complications, venous thromboembolism (VTE), respiratory failure, acute kidney injury, prolonged intensive care unit and hospital lengths of stay, increased readmissions, and higher mortality.
They write that many of these adverse outcomes are “not driven by operative mortality alone but by failure-to-rescue following preventable complications.” After examining outcome data for the patient cohort, they argue that “systematic adoption of bariatric surgery quality frameworks, including standardized pathways for infection prevention, VTE prophylaxis, nutrition, opioid stewardship, and post-discharge follow-up, represents a pragmatic and evidence-based strategy to improve outcomes in this high-risk population.”
Read the full study for free here.
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