Careful preoperative assessment considering comorbidities like heart disease, dementia, and diabetes is crucial for accurately estimating surgical risk in elderly patients beyond age alone.
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Supports comorbidity-focused preoperative assessment in elderly surgical patients; leaves open prospective validation of age-independent risk stratification.
Age continues to be a risk factor for overall mortality in elective and emergency surgical procedures. Postoperative pneumonias, life-threatening cardiac complications, and malignancy-related complications account for most deaths. Heart disease, dementia, and diabetes confer an additional surgical risk for elderly patients. Careful preoperative assessment, however, can categorize elderly patients into groups that are at no additional risk. Factors other than age should be considered in estimating surgical risk in the elderly.
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David N. Mohr (1983) studied this question.
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