מתוך medicontext.co.il
WESTPORT, CT (Reuters Health) – Researchers have developed a risk index for predicting postoperative pneumonia that could be useful in guiding perioperative respiratory care, according to a report in the November 20th issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Dr. Ahsan M. Arozullah, from the University of Illinois in Chicago, and colleagues generated the risk index by analyzing data on 160,805 patients who underwent major noncardiac surgery between September 1997 and August 1999. The index was validated by analyzing data on 155,266 patients who had undergone surgery 2 years prior.
Overall, 1.5% of patients developed pneumonia, the researchers note. They assigned risk points to patient characteristics and operative factors based on their ability to predict pneumonia. Of the patient characteristics, age of 80 years or older and totally dependent functional status received the most risk points. Of the surgical procedures and other operative factors, abdominal aortic aneurysm repair received the most.
Five risk classes were generated based on the total number of risk points. The pneumonia rates ranged from 0.2% for patients with 0 to 15 points to 15.3% for patients with more than 55 points.
The researchers believe that the risk index may "be useful to clinicians in estimating patient risk for postoperative pneumonia and in targeting perioperative testing and respiratory care to high-risk patients."
In an editorial, Dr. Valerie A. Lawrence, from the University of Texas at San Antonio, comments that the bulk of published research on prediction of postoperative medical complications has focused on cardiac complications. However, more and more evidence indicates that pulmonary complications are just as important as cardiac ones.
With the publication of the current report, Dr. Lawrence states, "the sleeping giant of risk prediction for postoperative pulmonary complications stirs."
תגובות רוצה להצטרף לדיון?
יש להתחבר כדי להגיב.
התחבראין תגובות עדיין. היה הראשון להגיב!