Day Surgery in Pediatric Plastic Surgery: A 5-Year Hospital Experience

ABSTRACT

The popularity of elective day surgery has increased significantly over the past two decades. Potential advantages of day surgery are alleviation of parental burden on time and money, less social disruption for the child and family due to the shorter period hospitalization and the absence of overnight stay. Between January of 1996 and December of 2000, we studied 391 cases that underwent day surgery (age 1 mo.-15.0 yrs). This practice is reviewed with regard to initial assessment, preparation for surgery, postoperative complications and management, and immediate follow-up by telephone visit. Up to 28% of all pediatric plastic surgical cases were performed on day-care basis mainly in laser therapy and excision of benign soft tissue mass. The incidence of postoperative minor medical complications was 3.1 In addition, we reviewed 14 patients who underwent ambulatory surgery with syndactyly and/or polydactyly of the hand. Then we compared 3 parameters (hospital charge, postoperative complications and degree of postoperative satisfaction in parents) with those of 84 inpatient children who underwent the same surgical procedures. As results, ambulatory surgery group is more economical than inpatient surgery group with postoperative satisfaction higher than inpatients surgery group with negligible complications.And based on a 5-year experience of authors, day-surgery system in pediatric plastic surgery is safe, effective and in the best interest of a select but significant proportion of children requiring elective operation.