Intraoperative Vascular Assistance: Essential to an Institution's Ability to Provide Surgical Care

Background: The wide breadth of vascular surgery (VS) training enables vascular surgeons to assist in nonvascular operations and rapidly respond to urgent and emergent needs for intervention. This study aims to evaluate VS secondary operative assistance and intraoperative consultations Methods: Retrospective review of all operative interventions with a vascular surgeon as secondary surgeon between January 1, 2011 and January 31, 2020 at a single institution. Any cases with VS as primary service were excluded. Patient demographics, operative variables, and in-hospital outcomes were evaluated. Results: Four hundred thirty-seven patients requiring interventions necessitating VS assistance were identified, this included elective, urgent, and emergent operative cases. One hundred thirty-one cases were urgent or emergent and 306 were elective. The median age was 58.0 years (IQR: 40–68.0). Most patients were male (237, 54.2%), White (298, 68.2%), and average BMI was 29.2 +/- 8.5 with ASA ≥4 (143, 32.7%). One hundred seventy (38.9%) cases involved intraoperative consultations, whereas, 267 (61.1%) provided advance notice of need for secondary assistance. The most common services requesting consultations were spine surgery (both orthopedic and neurosurgery) (83, 19%), cardiothoracic surgery (82, 18.8%), and surgical oncology (42, 9.6%). Vascular interventions included revascularization (108, 4.7%), hemorrhage control (94, 21.5%), and exposure (131, 30%). In-hospital mortality was 12.1%. Conclusions: With the armamentarium of open, endovascular, and hybrid interventions, vascular surgeons are prepared to respond and intervene in nonvascular cases in the event of unexpected vascular compromise, iatrogenic injury, or challenging exposure, as well as assist in planned elective operations. This study reinforces the role of VS in an institution's ability to offer safe and prompt surgical care.