Does surgical experience influence mastectomy complications?

Mastectomy remains the most commonly performed surgical procedure for breast cancer, and complications such as infection or wound breakdown (which may relate to the experience of the operator) could expensively prolong hospital stay and retard the administration of additional therapy. We examined the complications, hospital stay and cost of therapy of total mastectomy and axillary node clearance in 164 women, comparing these between four grades of surgeon: registrar (67 operations), senior registrar (58), part-time consultant (21) and professor (18). Our policy, for local reasons, was to perform mastectomy whenever possible rather than select lesser surgical or non-surgical management options. There was no significant difference between operators when the percentage of seromas requiring aspiration (9, 3, 5, 6), infection (16, 7, 23, 11), or wound breakdown (7, 3, 5, 6) were compared. Neither the length of hospital stay (9.3 +/- 6.9, 8.2 +/- 4.7, 9 +/- 7.3, 9.2 +/- 11.2 days), nor cost (2005, 1939, 1966, 1927 rands) differed. Surgical experience did not significantly influence mastectomy complications.