Effect of postoperative hypoalbuminemia and supplement of human serum albumin on the development of poor wound healing following lumbar internal fixation surgery

Objective: To analyze the association between postoperative hypoalbuminemia and poor wound healing, and to evaluate whether postoperative supplementation of human serum albumin can improve postoperative wound healing after lumbar internal fixation surgery. Methods: From January 2014 to December 2018, 602 patients who underwent lumbar internal fixation surgery in the Department of Orthopedics, Zhujiang Hostiptal of Southern Medical University were identified. There were 250 males (41.5%) and 352 females (58.5%), with an average age of (60+/-12) years. All patients' clinical records were reviewed, including demographics data, comorbidity data, preoperative serum laboratory values, intraoperative factor, postoperative serum laboratory values and wound healing, and the incidence rate of poor wound healing was calculated. The statistical analyses were performed with R software and Empower(R) to analyze the factors related to poor wound healing. Multiple logistic regression models were performed with adjustment for the potential confounders to evaluate the effect of postoperative hypoalbuminemia and supplementation of human serum albumin on the development of poor wound healing. Results: Poor wound healing occurred in 51(8.47%) patients. After adjusting for the confounding factors, multiple regression analysis showed that there was no correlation between postoperative albumin levels and poor wound healing(OR=1.00, 95%CI: 0.91-1.10, P=1.000). Compared with patients with postoperative normal albumin level, postoperative hypoalbuminemia would increase the risk of poor wound healing by 13% (OR=1.13, 95%CI: 0.47-2.70, P=0.787). There was no correlation between supplementation of human serum albumin and poor wound healing in patients with normal albumin levels or postoperative hypoalbuminemia (P>0.05). Conclusions: There is no correlation between postoperative hypoalbuminemia and poor wound healing after lumbar internal fixation surgery. Postoperative supplementation of human serum albumin can't improve wound healing.