Old Age Alone Not to Blame for Surgical Complications

A review published in BMC Medicine looked at 44 studies that included more than 12,000 people aged 60 and older to determine that although frailty, mental impairment, depressive symptoms, and smoking elevated the risk for post-surgical complications, age did not, reports HealthDay News . In addition, the researchers observed no link between the risk for complications and a person's American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) status, which assesses a subject's physical health prior to surgery. In general, 25 percent of the individuals in the reviewed studies experienced some type of post-surgical complication. "The fact that age and ASA status were not risk factors for postoperative complications is somewhat surprising because these are the factors a clinician would typically look at when assessing a person's risk of developing complications after surgery," says study author Dr. Jennifer Watt with St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Canada. "Older adults are a diverse group of subjects whose risk of postoperative complications is not solely defined by their age, co-morbidities multiple health problems or the type of surgical procedure they receive. This study highlights how common postoperative complications are among older adults undergoing elective surgery, and the importance of geriatric syndromes, including frailty, in identifying older adults who may be at risk." Watt believes spotting and addressing risk factors before surgery, especially smoking and depressive symptoms, could be useful.