Perisurgical smoking cessation and reduction of postoperative complications.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to determine if a perisurgical smoking cessation program reduces smoking-related postoperative complications in urogynecologic surgery.


METHODS
A review of patients that underwent pelvic reconstructive surgery from 1998 to 2003 was performed. All smokers underwent a perisurgical smoking cessation program of their choice for at least 1 month before surgery, and continued for 1 month after surgery. Complications unrelated to smoking (cystotomy, enterotomy, urethral obstruction, etc) were excluded in the smoking-potentiated complications. Problems considered to be potentiated by smoking were: wound, pulmonary, cardiac, and febrile morbidity.


RESULTS
Eight hundred eighty-seven patients were included. There were 233 smoker cessation patients (SC) and 654 nonsmokers (NS). The total number of complications in the SC group was 61 (61/233, 26%) compared with 172 (172/654, 29%) in the NS group: (chi-square, P = .97). When looking at smoking-potentiated complications only, there were 34 (34/61, 56%) patients in the SC group and 90 (90/172, 52%) in the NS group (chi-square, P = .75).


CONCLUSIONS
There are no differences in smoking-potentiated complications between nonsmoking patients and patients who undergo a perisurgical smoking cessation program.
Moore
Susan
S
Center for Women's Medicine, Greenville Hospital System, SC 29605, USA. tfmattox@ghs.org
Mills
Benjie B
BB
Moore
Robert D
RD
Miklos
John R
JR
Mattox
Thomas Fleming
TF
D000368:Aged; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008875:Middle Aged; D011183:Postoperative Complications / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011184:Postoperative Period; D011300:Preoperative Care; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016540:Smoking Cessation