Requerimiento de servicios hospitalarios en Cirugía Estética ambulatoria: análisis de complicaciones en 13.411 casos consecutivos e implicaciones para la práctica en el contexto de la pandemia COVID-19

Background and objective. Aesthetic Plastic Surgery has been suspended in many regions of the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The preservation of available hospital resources for the care of patients seriously affected by this disease and the morbidity attributable to the inadvertent performance of an optional surgical act in a patient with asymptomatic infection, as well as the risk of bidirectional infection in health institutions, support massive cancellations of procedures with aesthetic fines. The reactivation of these services must consider the risk/benefit balance with the different phases of the pandemic and local epidemiology. Assuming the reopening of Aesthetic Surgery services, it is possible to propose a significant number of aesthetic procedures that have low risks of complications, and may be capable of being treated safely. Methods. Descriptive and retrospective study in patients operated on in an outpatient Aesthetic Surgery center, who required medical attention for associated complications in a previous COVID-19 period of 36 months, in order to identify variables and frequency of complications susceptible to commit additional hospital medical resources. Results. In a 3-year period, a total of 13.411 aesthetic surgeries were performed;67.5% of the procedures were unique and in 32.5% two or more procedures were processed in the same anesthetic act. In the first 30 postoperative days, 244 complications were observed for a 1.8% complication rate in 3 years. At the moment, the average surgical time was 200 minutes, 44 patients (18%) were managed at the hospital level and 200 (82%) were ambulatory. Conclusions. Consider that the reestablishment of elective Aesthetic Surgery services in the COVID-19 context it should start with single surgeries, short times of duration and less than 2 hours, in order to decrease the need for additional hospital resources. © 2021 Sociedad Espanola de Cirugia Plastica Reparadora y Estetica (SECPRE). All rights reserved.