Abstract
Background In various surgical specialties, racial disparities in postoperative complications
are widely reported. It is assumed that the effect of race can also be found in plastic
surgical outcomes, although this remains largely undefined in literature. This study
aims to provide data on the impact of race on outcomes of reconstructive breast surgery.
Methods Data were collected using the NSQIP (National Surgical Quality Improvement Program)
database (2008–2016). Outcomes of the reconstructive breast surgery of White patients
were compared with those of African American, Asian, or other races. Logistic regression
was performed to control for variations between all groups. Analysis of racial disparities
was further sub-stratified according to four different types of breast reconstruction:
delayed or immediate autologous, and delayed or immediate prosthesis-based reconstruction.
Results In total, this study included 51,362 patients of which 43,864 were Caucasian, 5,135
African American, 2,057 Asian, and 332 of other races. When compared with White patients,
patients of African American race had larger body mass indices (31.3 ± 7.0 vs. 27.6 ± 6.3,
p-value < 0.001) in addition to higher rates of diabetes (12.3 vs 4.6%, p-value < 0.001) and hypertension (44.7 vs. 23.4%, p-value < 0.001). Both multivariate analysis and the sub-stratified analysis of different
types of reconstruction showed no differences in overall complication rate.
Conclusion Among the four types of reconstructive procedures, differences in surgical outcomes
do not appear to be based on race and therefore seem to be less evident in reconstructive
breast surgery compared with the current literature within other surgical specialties.
Keywords
reconstruction - breast reconstruction - race - minority - racial disparities - NSQIP
