No abstract

Introduction There is a conflict in the literature regarding the impact of obesity on the duration of surgical operation and the length of hospital stay. Some studies revealed that obesity has no impact on the duration of surgical operation and the length of hospital stay1 and other studies showed the opposite.2 Due to this conflict, we conducted this study to determine whether the obesity has a major role on operation time and hospital stay. Material and Method: The study design is quantitative, observational, and retrospective cohort study on 129 patients who underwent orthopedic spinal surgical operations in King Khalid University Hospital during the years 2013 to 2015. After the exclusion, we reviewed the charts of 106 patients to obtain the duration of the surgical operation, length of hospital stay, the amount of blood loss and the development of postoperative complications. Also, we reviewed the patients’ X-ray and MRI images to measure the space from lamina to skin silhouette and the space from spinous process to skin silhouette. Results 52.4% of the patients who were included in our study were obese. The results revealed that obese patients had a larger space from the lamina to skin silhouette and a larger space from spinous process to skin silhouette on both X-ray and MRI images. There was no statistically significant difference between obese and non-obese patients regarding time of surgery, blood loss and length of hospital stay. There is no statistically significant difference between obese and non-obese patients regarding the development of postoperative complications, in particular DVT, surgical site infection, surgical revision. Conclusion The BMI of the patients who underwent spinal orthopedic surgical operations in King Khalid University Hospital from 2013 to 2015 did not impact the time of surgery, blood loss and length of hospital stay. References Turki AS, Dakhil YA, Turki AA, Ferwana MS. Total knee arthroplasty: effect of obesity and other patients' characteristics on operative duration and outcome. Available at: http://www.wjgnet.com/2218-5836/full/v6/i2/284.htm. Accessed June 6, 2015 McClendon J Jr, Smith TR, Thompson SE, et al. The impact of body mass index on hospital stay and complications after spinal fusion. Neurosurgery 2014;74(1):42–50