Researchers conducted Cohort comparison research in retrospect. For a study, they sought to assess ambulatory and inpatient posterior cervical foraminotomy (PCF) perioperative complications and 30-day readmission in the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database. The NSQIP database from 2005 to 2018 identified patients who had PCF (by laminotomy or laminectomy). Cases with a hospital stay of 0 days were classified as ambulatory procedures. Cases with a length of stay of 1–4 days were considered inpatient operations. The 2 cohorts were compared in patient characteristics, comorbidities, and operative factors (laminotomy vs laminectomy). The surgical complications and 30-day readmissions of the 2 groups were then compared using propensity score-matched comparisons. Investigators discovered 795 ambulatory and 1,789 inpatient single-level PCF cases in total. There were 795 ambulatory and 795 inpatient patients once all of the cases were matched. According to statistical analysis after propensity score matching, unique complications, such as 30-day readmission, thromboembolic events, wound complications, reoperation, and aggregated complications were not significantly different between ambulatory and matched inpatient procedures. Overall, 2.46% of the study group had 30-day readmissions following ambulatory single-level PCF, with surgical site infections (46%) and pain control is the most common explanation (15%). The perioperative outcomes examined in the study support the conclusion that single-level PCF for cervical radiculopathy can be performed in the ambulatory setting for correctly selected patients without an increase in 30-day perioperative complications or readmissions when compared to inpatient procedures.
