Preoperative assessment for pulmonary resection

Because of recent advances in anesthesia and surgery, almost any patient with a resectable lung malignancy is now an operative candidate, given a full understanding of the risks and provided he or she is investigated appropriately. This progress necessitates a change in the paradigm that one uses for preoperative assessment. Understanding and stratifying the perioperative risks allows the anesthesiologist to develop a systematic focused approach to these patients at the time of the initial contact and immediately before induction, which then can be used to guide anesthetic management (Fig. 7).