Longer operative time is associated with increased adverse events after anterior cervical diskectomy and fusion: 15-minute intervals matter

Abstract

Little is known about the impact of operative time, as an independent and interval variable, on general health perioperative outcomes following anterior cervical diskectomy and fusion. Therefore, patients undergoing a 1-level anterior cervical diskectomy and fusion were identified in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program. Operative time (as an interval variable) was tested for association with perioperative outcomes using a multivariate regression that was adjusted for differences in baseline characteristics. A total of 15,241 patients were included. Increased surgical duration was consistently correlated with a rise in any adverse event postop-eratively, with each additional 15 minutes of operating time raising the risk for having any adverse event by an average of 10% (99.64% confidence interval, 3%-17%, P