Nutritional Status and 90-Day Readmission Following Final Irrigation and Debridement in Spinal Reoperation Patients

Publication Date

2026

Presentation Length

Poster/Gallery presentation

College

Thomas F. Frist, Jr. College of Medicine

Department

Chemistry and Physics, Department of

Student Level

Graduate

Presentation Type

Poster

Summary

Hospital readmission is an important quality metric in spine surgery, with irrigation and debridement (I&D) for surgical site infection representing a substantial proportion of reoperations. While malnutrition has been associated with adverse postoperative outcomes, its role in predicting longer-term readmission following final I&D remains unclear. This study evaluated whether nutritional status, defined by prealbumin levels and nutrition risk category, predicts 90-day readmission after final I&D in patients undergoing spinal reoperation. A retrospective cohort of 89 patients was analyzed using univariate testing and multivariable L2-regularized logistic regression with bootstrap resampling to reduce overfitting and improve estimate stability. Nineteen patients (21.3%) were readmitted within 90 days. On univariate analysis, lower prealbumin levels and longer operative time were significantly associated with readmission. Higher prealbumin was protective (OR 0.54 per 5 units, p = 0.032), while longer operative time increased risk of readmission (OR 1.51 per 60 minutes, p = 0.008). In multivariable analysis, operative time (adjusted OR 1.96, 95% CI 1.10–3.59) and instrumentation (adjusted OR 1.70, 95% CI 1.31–2.31) remained independent predictors, whereas prealbumin was no longer independently associated. These findings suggest that procedural factors play a dominant role in predicting 90-day readmission following final I&D, while nutritional status may provide additional context for patient risk stratification.

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