Abstract:
Background: Ethnic disparities in surgical care and outcomes have been previously reported instudiesfor othersurgicalprocedures.In addition, it has been reportedthat ethnicdifferencesinpostoperative analgesia exist. We aimed to determine ethnic disparities in postoperativeoutcomes, total opioid analgesia use, and complication rates of all patients who underwent a laparoscopic ventral hernia repair (LVHR) at our institution over a 3-y period. Methods: A retrospective review of all patients who underwent an LVHR at CountiesManukau Health from January 1, 2013, to December 31, 2015, was performed in line with the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology statement. Results: A total of 267 ventral hernias were repaired in 254 patients at Counties ManukauHealth over the study period, of which most were primary umbilical ventral hernias. Themajority of patients in our cohort were New Zealand European and male. Major compli-cations, as per the Clavien-Dindo classification grade 3 and above, were observed in sixpatients with no deaths (2.4%). There were no statistically significant ethnic disparities in length of stay, receipt of opioid analgesia, and rates of complication observed after linear regression modelling after adjustment for confounding factors. Conclusions: Our study showed that the majority of patients who had a ventral herniarepaired at our institution were mostly New Zealand European and male. Although sig-nificant ethnic disparities in patient characteristics were observed, these were not asso-ciated with ethnic disparities in postoperative outcomes after an LVHR.
