[Perioperative morbidity and mortality of geriatric patients. A retrospective study of 3905 cases]

3905 patients of more than 60 years of age who underwent surgical, urological, orthopaedic or opthalmologic interventions, were retrospectively investigated with respect to preoperative condition, intraoperative peculiarities and postoperative complications. Only 3.2% of the old patients (of more than 75 years of age), but 7.2% of elderly patients (between 60 and 74 years of age) had no coexisting disease. Preexisting diseases were myocardial (54.5%) and respiratory diseases (41.3%), hypertension (32.6%), dysrhythmia (30.8%) and diabetes mellitus (17.6%). From the old patients, 58.1% were classified into ASA physical status III to V but only 43.2% from the elderly patients. Peculiarities during anaesthesia and recovery period were (in total): dysrhythmia (8.3%), blood pressure decrease (5.9%) and increase (1.6%) that were significantly more often seen in old than in elderly patients whereas bleeding (4.5%) in the old was not different from the elderly. Independent of age, 11.6% of patients were monitored postoperatively on an intensive-care unit. 47.3% of all patients did not develop any postoperative complication. The incidence of postoperative cardiac, respiratory, central nervous, and lethal complications was not significantly higher in old than in elderly patients. However, the incidence of complications increased significantly with ASA physical status. Mortality of elderly and old patients after emergency interventions was 17.8% and 24.7% respectively and about 10 times that high as after elective surgery (2% in both groups.)