Importance of intraoperative vascular surgery assistance

Editor's Note

The high proportion of emergent surgical cases that require vascular repair demonstrates the importance of having vascular surgeons immediately available at the hospital, this study finds.

Of 299 patients in 12 surgical subspecialties that were included in the study, there were indications for vascular surgery assistance in 156 spine exposure (52%), 43 vascular control without hemorrhage (14.4%), 43 control of hemorrhage (14.4%), and 57 vascular reconstruction (19%) cases. All procedures required open surgical exposure by the vascular surgeon.

Those who required vascular repair had a higher incidence of death, myocardial infarction, or unplanned return to the OR.

Importance Vascular surgeons possess a skill set that allows them to assist nonvascular surgeons in the operating room. Existing studies on this topic are limited in their scope to specific procedures or clinical settings. Objective To describe the broad spectrum of cases that require intraoperative vascular surgery assistance.