The role of simultaneous abdominal surgery and wound classification in ventriculoperitoneal shunt complication.

Purpose: To evaluate whether simultaneous abdominal surgery or wound contamination at the time of ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunt placement are associated with increased shunt complications.

Methods: Pediatric patients who underwent VP shunt placement were identified using the National Surgical Quality Improvement Program Pediatric database. VP shunt complication rates were compared between patients who underwent simultaneous abdominal surgeries at the time of VP shunt placement vs those who did not and between those with clean/clean-contaminated and contaminated/dirty wound classifications. Adjusted analysis was performed using 1:5 case-control matching.

Results: Among 2715 patients who underwent VP shunt placement, 21 had simultaneous abdominal procedures and were matched with 105 control patients. No significant difference was found in overall (34.3 vs 14.3%, p = 0.07), infectious (8.6 vs 4.8%, p = 1.000), or non-infectious (25.7 vs 9.5%, p = 0.156) shunt complications in the simultaneous vs non-simultaneous group, respectively. In a separate analysis of wound classification, 12 patients with contaminated/dirty wounds were matched with 60 patients with clean/clean-contaminated wounds. The rates of shunt infections for clean/clean-contaminated and contaminated/dirty cases were 10.0 and 16.7%, respectively (p = 0.613).

Conclusion: In our matched case-control study, neither simultaneous abdominal surgery nor wound contamination at the time of VP shunt placement demonstrated significant increased risk of 30-day post-operative complication.