This paper aims to review the reasons behind readmission to hospital after day case elective sinonasal surgery up to a month postoperatively. This French tertiary institution study retrospectively reviewed the charts of 924 patients undergoing nasal day case surgery over a two-year period. This included day case sinus surgery (53%), septoplasty +/- turbinoplasty (28%), nasal fractures (10%) and rhinoplasty (9%) procedures in ASA 1 and 2 patients only, since ASA 3 and 4 in their institution stay overnight routinely. The readmission rate included unplanned admissions on the day of surgery and up to 30 days postoperatively but not visits to the emergency department or rhinology department with issues not requiring admission.
The overall readmission rate was 5.1% (50 patients), this was divided into 2.9% (27 patients) for unplanned overnight admission on the day of surgery itself and 2.5% (23 patients) for readmission up to 30 days’ postoperatively.
Operating room and anaesthetic files were reviewed to identify risks in terms of demographics, type of procedure, comorbidities and postoperative complications. Reasons for readmission included surgical issues in 33 cases, bleeding (15), pain (7), intolerance to nasal packing (6) and anaesthetic causes in 11 cases, e.g. PONV (3). Other reasons included no patient escort and personal matters. Negative predictors for readmission appeared to be age over 50, surgical duration more than 80 minutes, undergoing endoscopic sinus surgery and having postoperative nasal packing in place.
