Impact of day of week on outcomes of endoscopic sinus surgery for chronic rhinosinusitis

Background: Outcomes for some surgical procedures are discrepantly affected by the day of the week when surgery is performed. It remains unknown whether this finding is applicable to endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS). Methods: A retrospective analysis of a cohort from a prospective observational study of patients undergoing ESS for chronic rhinosinusitis. Primary outcome measures included major postoperative complications (epistaxis that required physician intervention, orbital injury, and cerebrospinal fluid leak) as well as Sinonasal Outcomes Test 22 (SNOT-22) and Chronic Sinusitis Survey (CSS) quality-of-life symptom scores at 3 months, 1 year, and 2 years. Associations between the day of the week when ESS was performed and outcome measures were performed when controlling for patients' clinical and demographic characteristics. Results: The study population consisted of 544 patients with a 30-day major postoperative complications rate of 1.2%. There was no predilection for ESS complications by the day of the week. In comparison with ESS on a Monday, improvement in the SNOT-22 score was no different than with ESS performed on Tuesday (p = 0.800 at 3 months, p = 0.149 at 12 months, p = 0.123 at 24 months), Wednesday (p = 0.533 at 3 months, p = 0.708 at 12 months, p = 0.107 at 24 months), and Thursday (p = 0.965 at 3 months, p = 0.959 at 12 months, p = 0.501 at 24 months). No surgeries were performed on Friday. Similar results were found for improvement in CSS scores. Conclusion: The day of the week on which ESS was performed did not impact surgical outcomes. These results provided novel insights, which may be useful for preoperative discussions with patients and scheduling of ESS.