Pediatric Plastic Surgery Under Local Anesthesia.

BACKGROUND: Increasing research has shown that select surgical procedures can be performed in an office-based environment with low complication rates. Within the field of plastic surgery, these findings have mainly been studied in adult populations. However, studies regarding the safety and efficacy of office-based plastic surgery in the pediatric population are lacking. In the present study, we demonstrate that appropriately selected office-based pediatric plastic surgery procedures can be performed under local anesthesia for a variety of common surgical indications with low complication rates.

METHODS: A retrospective case series of pediatric plastic surgery patients who underwent in-office procedures under local anesthesia at a single academic institution from September 2014 to June 2020 was performed.

RESULTS: Five hundred nine patients were treated in an office setting for various etiologies over the study period. A total of 48.9% of the patients were male and 51.1% were female. Patient age at time of procedure ranged from 24 days to 17 years of age with a median age of 13 years. A total of 778 lesions were treated. There were 10 total complications (1.29%) over the study period with only one surgical site infection that resolved with antibiotic treatment.

CONCLUSIONS: Our work indicates that select pediatric plastic surgery procedures can be performed under local anesthesia with low complication rates.