The Potential Impact of Plastic Surgery Expertise on Body Contouring Procedure Outcomes.

[BACKGROUND] With the increasing demand for body contouring procedures in the United States over the past 2 decades, more surgeons with diverse specialty training are performing these procedures. However, little is known regarding the comparative outcomes of these patients.

[OBJECTIVES] The purpose of this study was to compare outcomes of body contouring procedures based on the specialty training of the surgeon.

[METHODS] Data from the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (2005-2015) were reviewed for all body contouring procedures. Patients were stratified by surgeon training (plastic surgery [PS] vs general surgery [GS]). Descriptive statistics and regression analyses were used to evaluate differences in outcomes.

[RESULTS] A total of 11,658 patients were included; 9502 PS cases and 2156 GS cases. Most were women (90.4%), aged 40 to 59 (52.7%) and white (79.5%). Compared with PS patients, GS patients were more likely to be obese (61.4% vs 40.6%), smokers (13.6% vs 9.8%), and with ASA classification ≥3 (35.3% vs 18.6%) (all P < 0.001). Abdominal contouring procedures were the most common (76%) cases. Multivariate regression revealed that compared with PS cases, those performed by GS practitioners were associated with increased wound and infectious complications (adjusted odds ratio [aOR], 1.81; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.44-2.27), reoperation (aOR, 1.85; 95% CI, 1.31-2.62), and predicted mean length of stay (1.12 days; 95% CI, 0.64-1.60 days).

[CONCLUSIONS] The variable outcomes in body contouring procedures performed by PS compared with GS practitioners may imply procedural-algorithmic differences between the subspecialties, leading to the noted outcome differential.