Introduction: High BMI (Body Mass Index) is associated with increased perioperative bleeding, longer surgical time and longer recovery time. We investigated the influence of raised BMI in patients undergoing parathyroid surgery in terms of surgical duration as well as preoperative radiological localisation and confirmation of parathyroid pathology in a single surgeons practice.
Methods: A retrospective review of the prospectively maintained parathyroid surgery database of a single surgeon between September 2019 and September 2023. Data collected were patient’s demographics, BMI, indication for surgery, preoperative imaging, size of pathology and operation length.
Results: 227 patients who underwent parathyroid surgery fulfilled our criteria for inclusion. Within our cohort of patients, 62% (141/227) patients had an elevated BMI. The average length of surgery in this cohort was 44 minutes vs 39 minutes in patients with a BMI less than 25 (P>0.01). There was no difference in radiological modalities of preoperative localisation and confirmation of pathology between the two groups (P>0.01).
Conclusions: Our study showed no statistically significant difference in the preoperative localisation scan results nor in the operative time between high BMI and low BMI patients undergoing parathyroid surgery.