-Original-

Association of Respiratory Tract Infection after Gastroenterological Surgery with Postoperative Duration of Hospitalization and Medical Expenses: Subanalysis of Data from a Multicenter Study

Hiroshi Maruyama¹, Shinya Kusachi², Hiroshi Yoshida³, Hiroshi Makino¹, Hironobu Nishimuta⁴ and Toru Niitsuma⁴

¹Department of Surgery, Nippon Medical School Tama Nagayama Hospital, Tokyo, Japan
²Department of Surgery, Tohokamagaya Hospital, Chiba, Japan
³Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery, Nippon Medical School, Tokyo, Japan
⁴Department of Surgery, Toho University Medical Center Ohashi Hospital, Tokyo, Japan

Background: Postoperative infections can be classified as surgical site infections and remote infections. Postoperative respiratory tract infections (PRTI) are a type of remote infection and may be associated with prolonged hospitalization and increased medical expenses. This study compared postoperative duration of hospitalization and medical expenses between patients with and without PRTI after gastrointestinal surgery.
Methods: We retrospectively analyzed data from a multicenter study of centers affiliated with the Japan Society for Surgical Infection and used 1-to-1 matching analysis to evaluate 86 patients who underwent gastrointestinal surgery during the period from March 1, 2014 through February 29, 2016.
Results: Duration of postoperative hospitalization was significantly longer for patients with PRTI (38.6 days) than for those without PRTI (16.1 days), and postoperative medical expenses were significantly higher for patients with PRTI (1388.2 USD) than for those without PRTI (629.4 USD).
Conclusions: Duration of hospitalization is longer and medical expenses are higher for patients that develop surgical site infections. This study found that this was also the case for patients with PRTI after gastrointestinal surgery. However, further studies are needed in order to confirm these results.

J Nippon Med Sch 2020; 87: 252-259

Keywords
Remote infection, medical expenses, postoperative respiratory infection, hospitalization period

Correspondence to
Hiroshi Maruyama, Department of Surgery, Nippon Medical School Tama Nagayama Hospital, 1-7-1 Nagayama, Tama, Tokyo
maruchan@nms.ac

Received, November 5, 2019
Accepted, December 17, 2019