Correlation between complication rate and perioperative risk-factors in superior pedicle reduction mammaplasty: our experience in 127 patients

Reduction mammaplasty, one of the most common plastic surgery procedures, has been shown to confer significant sustained health benefits for patients with symptomatic breast enlargement (26,29) providing a remedy for back, neck, and shoulder pain. Unfortunately, operations of breast reduction may lead to patient dissatisfaction for poor aesthetic outcome due to complications. Complications, including infection, hematoma, seroma, dehiscence, fat necrosis, and skin loss, may occur in as many as 50% of patients (8). Unacceptable scarring has also been reported (5). Complication data revealed several significant features, although there isn't much objective evidence to support that (6,10, 18, 20, 30, 33). Over the period 2004-2008,127 consecutive patients were admitted for breast reduction surgery, data have been analyzed retrospectively to determine whether any correlation could be found between complication rate and perioperative risk-factors using a multifactorial ANOVA F-test. Analysis of variables associated with complications showed that, after adjusting for age and smoking status, only BMI was associated with any complication (p<0.05). By power analysis, based on a comparison of three proportions, a power of 92% with a significance level of 0.05 was found for the hypothesis that the outcomes of the procedures depends on BMI.