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The Risk of Readmission: Evaluating Complications in Gluteal Implant Patients
Dorien I. Schonebaum, BSc
1,
Jose Foppiani, MD1, Jade E. Smith, BA
1, Noelle Garbaccio, BA
1, Lacey Foster, BSc
1, Morvarid Mehdizadeh, BA
1, Justin J. Cordero, BSc
1, Thomas Suszynski, MD
2, Umar Choudry, MD
2, Samuel J. Lin, MD, MBA
1.
1Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA, 2Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA.
Background: Gluteal augmentations are a popular cosmetic procedure within the field of plastic surgery. Multiple techniques have emerged such as gluteal implants, synthetic substitution and fat grafting.While many of these cases occur in private offices, in the hospital gluteal augmentation is used primarily in reconstruction.
Method: The nationwide readmission database (NRD) was queried from 2017-2020 using ICD10 codes for gluteal implants, gluteal fat transfers, and synthetic gluteal substitutes. Descriptive statistics were performed to determine most common complications.
Results: A total of 158 patients (mean age 51.9y +/-16, 48.1% female and 51.9% male) were reviewed: 38 gluteal implants, 54 fat transfers, and 72 synthetic substitutes. 6 patients underwent multiple procedures. 74% of patients were admitted with some form of infection, either sepsis (26%), cellulitis (7.5%), postoperative infections (4.4%) or other infections (32.9%). Other complications seen were thrombosis (5%) and muscle necrosis (3.2%). A total of 182 complications were noted, 1.15 per patient. Synthetic substitutes had the highest complication rate (n=98, 1.36 per patient), followed by implants (n=41, 1.08 per patient) and fat transfers (n=41, 0.76 per patient).
Conclusion: The population studied shows details of complications after gluteal augmentation with infection as leading complication (75%). It is unknown whether these patients received their augmentation in the hospital or private practice. Future studies should focus on complication screening in private practice and hospitals to provide patients with a more accurate safety profile.
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