Association Between Preoperative Blood Glucose Level and Hospital Length of Stay for Patients Undergoing Appendectomy or Laparoscopic Cholecystectomy

To evaluate the effect of preoperative blood glucose (POBG) level on hospital length of stay (LOS) in patients undergoing appendectomy or laparoscopic cholecystectomy. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of patients aged ≥18 years who had undergone appendectomy or laparoscopic cholecystectomy procedures between 2005 and 2016 at a tertiary medical center in Taiwan. The association between POBG level and LOS was evaluated using a multivariable quasi-Poisson regression with robust variance. Multiple imputations were performed to replace missing values. We included 8,291 patients; 4,025 patients underwent appendectomy (appendectomy group) and 4,266 underwent laparoscopic cholecystectomy (laparoscopic cholecystectomy group). In the appendectomy group, patients with POBG levels of ≥123 mg/dL (adjusted relative risk [aRR] 1.19; 95% CI 1.06-1.33) had a 19% higher risk of having a LOS of >3 days than did those with POBG levels of 3 days (aRR 1.17; 95% CI 1.07-1.29) than did those with POBG levels of 3 days was observed, although the curve starts to flatten at a POBG level of ∼130 mg/dL. We demonstrated that a higher POBG level was significantly associated with a prolonged LOS for patients undergoing appendectomy or laparoscopic cholecystectomy. The optimal POBG level may be lower than that commonly perceived.