Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Experiment Videos

Changes in prognosis after the first postoperative complication.

Jeffrey H Silber1, Paul R Rosenbaum, Martha E Trudeau

  • 1The Center for Outcomes Research, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA. silberj@wharton.upenn.edu

Medical Care
|January 19, 2005
PubMed
Summary

Related Concept Videos

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

STRONGER INSTRUMENTS VIA INTEGER PROGRAMMING IN AN OBSERVATIONAL STUDY OF LATE PRETERM BIRTH OUTCOMES.

The annals of applied statistics·2026
Same author

Reporting Failure to Rescue Lands in Europe.

JAMA network open·2026
Same author

Improving the Evaluation of Low-Volume Hospitals.

Medical care·2026
Same author

Assessing Hospital Surgical Quality.

Annals of surgery open : perspectives of surgical history, education, and clinical approaches·2025
Same author

Grading Hospitals Using Multivariate Matching.

Medical care·2025
Same author

Optimal refinement of strata to balance covariates.

Biometrics·2024

First postoperative complications significantly increase patient mortality risk. Even minor complications can drastically alter prognosis, signaling a need for reevaluation of care.

Area of Science:

  • Medical research
  • Surgical outcomes
  • Patient safety

Background:

  • Postoperative complications are frequent in Medicare patients.
  • Previous studies have not quantified the prognostic impact of initial complications.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To estimate the relative severity of 24 distinct first postoperative complications.
  • To quantify the impact of these complications on patient mortality.

Main Methods:

  • A population-based, matched case-control study involving 1362 Pennsylvania Medicare patients.
  • Analysis of claims data from 1995-1996 to identify cases (deaths) and matched controls.
  • Development of models to estimate the odds of death following specific first postoperative complications.

Related Experiment Videos

Main Results:

  • Patients experiencing any first complication had a 3.4-fold increased odds of dying within 60 days.
  • Respiratory compromise as a first complication showed a 7.2-fold increase in mortality odds.
  • Pneumonia and congestive heart failure as first complications were associated with 5-fold and 5.1-fold increases in mortality odds, respectively.

Conclusions:

  • First postoperative complications, regardless of perceived severity, significantly elevate mortality risk.
  • These initial complications can initiate a cascade leading to death.
  • Findings underscore the importance of recognizing first complications as critical indicators for care reevaluation and provide data for assessing complication severity.