The association of disability conditions with access to minimally invasive general surgery.

BACKGROUND: Despite the high prevalence of disability conditions in the US, their association with access to minimally invasive surgery (MIS) remains under-characterized.

OBJECTIVE: To understand the association of disability conditions with rates of MIS and describe nationwide temporal trends in MIS in patients with disability conditions.

METHODS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study using the Nationwide Readmission Database (2016-2019). We included patients ≥18 years undergoing general surgery procedures. Our primary outcome was the impact of disability conditions on the rate of MIS. We performed 1:1 propensity matching, comparing patients with disability conditions with those without and adjusting for patient, procedure, and hospital characteristics. We performed a subgroup analysis among patients<65 years and with patients with each type of disability. We evaluated temporal trends of MIS in patients with disabilities. We identified predictors of undergoing MIS using mixed effects regression analysis.

RESULTS: In the propensity-matched comparison, a lower proportion of patients with disabilities had MIS. In the sub-group analyses, the rate of MIS was significantly lower in patients below 65 years with disabilities and among patients with motor and intellectual impairments. There was an increasing trend in the proportion of patients with disabilities undergoing MIS (p < 0.005). The regression analysis confirmed that the presence of a disability was associated with decreased odds of undergoing MIS.

CONCLUSIONS: This study characterizes the negative association of disability conditions with access to MIS. As the healthcare landscape evolves, considerations on how to equitably share new treatment modalities with a wide range of patient populations are necessary.