Obesity Is Not Associated With Postoperative Complications After Vestibular Schwannoma Surgery in a Large Single Institution Series

Objective Determine whether elevated body mass index (BMI) is associated with postoperative complications after vestibular schwannoma (VS) surgery. Study design Retrospective case series. Setting Tertiary referral center. Patients Two hundred six patients undergoing surgery for VS between 2010 and 2017, grouped into obese and nonobese patients. Intervention Surgery for VS resection. Main outcome measures Postoperative facial nerve outcomes, length of hospital stay, presence of postoperative cerebrospinal fluid leak, 30-day readmission, return to the operating room, wound complications, cardiovascular and thromboembolic complications. Results After excluding 1 patient for missing BMI, our cohort included 205 patients. Seventy-nine patients (38.5%) were obese (mean BMI 36.2 kg/m, range 30-55.1) and the remaining 126 (61.5%) were nonobese (mean BMI 25.0, range 18.8-29.8 kg/m). Compared with nonobese patients, obesity was not associated with postoperative cerebrospinal fluid leak (OR 1.1, 95% CI 0.93-1.1), length of hospital stay (OR 0.98, 95% CI 0.65-1.47), 30-day readmission rates (1.04, 95% CI 0.95-1.14), return to operating room (OR 1.05, 95% CI 0.98-1.11), or other wound-related complications (OR 0.99, 95% CI 0.94-1.04). Conclusion In this cohort, elevated BMI was not associated with an increased risk for postoperative complications after VS surgery. Our findings may mitigate concerns associated with surgical management of VS in obese patients.