Does being overweight or having class 1 obesity reduce postoperative pulmonary complications in adults undergoing non-cardiac, non-obstetric surgery?
Overweight and class 1 obesity are paradoxically associated with a lower risk of postoperative pulmonary complications in non-cardiac, non-obstetric surgery compared to normal weight.
Patients who were overweight or living with class 1 obesity undergoing non-cardiac, non-obstetric surgery had paradoxically lower risks of postoperative pulmonary complications compared with those of a normal weight. These findings may contradict traditional assumptions about surgical risk and obesity, highlighting the need to re-evaluate the relationship between BMI and postoperative pulmonary complications.
Qin et al. (Tue,) studied this question.