[Cancelled surgical interventions at an orthopedic department]

In a department of orthopaedic surgery, all cancelled elective inpatient operations were registered prospectively during a period of four months. Out of 686 planned interventions, 13% were cancelled, most frequently less than 48 hours prior to the time of the planned operations. Patients whose operations were cancelled were not younger than patients subjected to operation but failure to report was related to low patient age. The type of the operative intervention which had to be cancelled did not differ from the interventions which were carried out. 40% of the cancellations were due to defective preoperative preparation of the patients, 23% were due to acute illness or personal circumstances of the patients and 36% were due to deficient operative capacity. Measures are recommended for possible reduction in the number of cancelled operations.