Complication register to describe the quality of treatment in otosurgery

Introduction There are currently no guidelines for continuous, standardized and systematic recording of complications after ear surgery (ear surgery). The recognition, documentation and evaluation of postoperative complication courses serves to ensure a high quality of treatment in the future.

Methods A prospective registration of all ear surgery procedures was carried out at the ENT University Hospital Dresden. By means of a registration database ear-specific complications were listed. A control was performed by retrospective review of all interventions (at least 6 months post-op). For complications data from the surgical report, the anesthesia protocol and the medical documentation were collected. In addition to a qualitative-descriptive evaluation, a statistical analysis of the dynamic course of complications was performed using Kaplan-Meier estimator (KME).

Results The absolute and relative frequency of each complication as well as its temporal occurrence (early ( <  48h) and late ( >48h)) were presented. The complication persistence function (CPF) and the median persistence time of a complication were determined using KME. The minimum required follow-up interval was determined by the entry into the plateau phase of CPF. The average time required for data collection and analysis was 8h/week (approx. 35min/earOP). This corresponds to about 400h for the evaluation of one year at 700 operations/year.

Conclusion: Standardized processes and dynamic analysis are essential for the description of complications. The maintenance of a complication registry can only be integrated into clinical routine with considerable time and resources. Nevertheless, the importance for the quality development of oto surgery is enormous.

Poster-PDF A-1305.pdf

Publication History

Article published online:
13 May 2021