The American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) is a prospective, multi-institutional clinical registry established as an auditing instrument to monitor and improve patient care in surgery. To date no publication has queried the NSQIP dataset from a plastic surgery perspective. A retrospective analysis was carried out of all delayed breast reconstruction cases recorded by the NSQIP from 2005 to 2008 (n=645). The 30-day morbidity was 5.7%, with wound infections being the most common complication. Logistic regression analysis identified BMI >25 and preoperative radiotherapy as independent risk factors for overall morbidity and wound infection. The NSQIP does not allow for capture of procedure-specific outcomes and this results in underreporting of overall morbidity compared to the literature; this may limit the capability to assess risk factors for complications. As breast reconstruction modules for NSQIP are currently under development, modifications to capture procedure-specific outcomes are recommended.
Copyright © 2011 British Association of Plastic, Reconstructive and Aesthetic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.