What are the predictors of risk and effective strategies to reduce postoperative pulmonary complications?
This review highlights key risk factors for postoperative pulmonary complications and outlines effective perioperative strategies to reduce their incidence.
Postoperative pulmonary complications are common, serious, and expensive. Important predictors of risk are advanced age, poor health as assessed by American Society of Anesthesiologists class, and surgery near the diaphragm. Effective strategies to reduce risk include postoperative lung expansion techniques, preoperative intensive inspiratory muscle training, postoperative thoracic epidural analgesia, selective rather than routine use of nasogastric tubes, and laparoscopic rather than open bariatric surgery.
Gerald W. Smetana (Fri,) studied this question.
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