Following ISAPS Recommendations, Does it Really Help?

[BACKGROUND] The demand for abdominoplasty procedures has increased in surgical centres as a result of patient preference and economic concerns. The International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery (ISAPS) published the Facility Accreditation Guideline on 22 October 2018. It is a list of recommendations that aim to reduce the incidence of complications and increase safety standards.

[OBJECTIVES] The objective of this work was to detect the effects of the ISAPS guidelines on the morbidity associated with abdominoplasty procedures in day care surgical centres.

[METHODS] The authors performed a retrospective study. Data regarding complications of abdominoplasty were collected from medical records of the last 350 cases of abdominoplasty performed in December 2018. The complications and their incidences were compared with similar previously published data of abdominoplasty operations performed by other authors and in surgical centres before initiation of the ISAPS Facility Accreditation Guideline.

[RESULTS] In all cases, we achieved a significant reduction in skin and adipose tissue with improvement in body shape. The incidence of major and minor post-operative complications was lower than that reported in other literature.

[CONCLUSIONS] This report shows that abdominoplasty is a safe procedure with low complication rates, which are even lower when the ISAPS Facility Accreditation Guideline is followed together with national, regional, state and other legal requirements.

[LEVEL OF EVIDENCE IV] This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these Evidence-Based Medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .