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Drainless abdominoplasty is safe in the overweight population.
Sidhbh Gallagher, Raj Sood, Chris Jones, Bill Sando.
Indiana University
2014-02-28
Presenter: Sidhbh Gallagher
Affidavit:
This abstract respresents the original work of the resident.
Director Name: Rajiv Sood
Author Category: Fellow Plastic Surgery
Presentation Category: Clinical
Abstract Category: Aesthetics
Drainless abdominoplasty is safe in the overweight population.
Purpose
Drainless abdominoplasty is an established method that forgoes the discomfort of drain care. Previous literature demonstrates the risk of seroma increases proportionately with BMI. Hence, overweight patients commonly have drains; we report a series of high BMI patients treated drainlessly
Methods
A single surgeon, 2 year database of all drainless abdominoplasties was analyzed retrospectively. Patients were divided into Group A (BMI < 25) and Group B (BMI > 25) Demographics, resection weight, and postoperative outcomes (complications, re-operation, satisfaction), were analyzed statistically.
Results
50 patients were assigned to group A and 38 to group B. The patients in group A and B were of similar ages (mean age 44 yrs. vs. 41yrs.) but had a significantly larger mean amount of tissue excised 1832g vs. 707g (p=0.0001). There was no statistically significant increase in complications between the groups related to the. rate of seroma (p=0.25), wound infection (p=1.0), wound dehiscence (p=0.43) and all other complications (p=1.0). Reoperative rates were also similar between the groups(p=0.7).
Conclusion
Drainless abdominoplasty is a technique gaining acceptance in populations with small fat resection volumes. We report a large series of overweight patients in whom drainless abdominoplasty is safe without leading to an increased complication rate.
