Elevated body mass index facilitates early postoperative complications after surgery for intracranial meningioma

Surgical resection represents the primary treatment option for patients suffering from intracranial meningioma. However, early postoperative complications significantly worsen initial favorable postoperative outcomes. Therefore, the ability to preoperatively assess potential risk factors for early postoperative unfavorable events is important to preselect critical patients who might require special attention during clinical management. In the current study, we therefore analyzed our institutional database in order to identify risk factors associated with early postoperative complications after initial meningioma resection. Between 2014 and 2017, 202 patients with intracranial supratentorial meningioma were surgically treated at the authors’ institution. Early postoperative complications were defined as any postoperative event requiring further surgical measures within 30 days following initial meningioma resection. A multivariate analysis was performed to identify independent risk factors associated with postoperative complications after surgical meningioma therapy. Overall, 13 out of 202 meningioma patients developed early postoperative complications (6%). The multivariate analysis revealed obesity in terms of elevated body mass index (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m2) (p = 0.03), the presence of atrial fibrillation (p = 0.001) as well as the preoperative Karnofsky Performance Status Scale < 70% (p = 0.004) as independent predictors for early postoperative complications in the course of supratentorial meningioma resection. Obesity is associated with a higher risk of postoperative unfavorable events that require further surgical treatment. Furthermore, the present study identifies several additional risk factors for the development of early postoperative complications after intracranial meningioma resection enabling to preoperatively select for high-risk patients that might require special attention in clinical and surgical management.