Is Norton Score a useful tool for identifying high-risk patients prior to emergency surgery?

Emergency surgery in elderly patients is associated with high mortality rates. Various scoring systems may be valuable in predicting mortality and morbidity rates. It has been suggested that the Norton Score (NS) could be used to quantify frailty. We hypothesized that NS could be a useful tool for identifying high-risk patients before emergency/urgent surgeries.

A retrospective study was conducted in the Department of Surgery at Kaplan Medical Center, Rehovot, Israel.

age ≥50 years, American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) physical status score ≥3 and urgent/emergency laparotomy. A total of 400 patients were identified, and 150 (37.5%) matched the inclusion criteria.

A total of 150 patients with ASA scores of 3-5 and who underwent emergent/urgent laparotomy from 1 January 2011 through 31 January 2013 were included. Mean age was 77 ± 9.7 years. The mortality rate at 1 month was 44% (66 patients) and at 1 year was 54.7% (82 patients). A higher ASA score was significantly associated with mortality (P < 0.001). Survivors had lower frailty scores and presented significantly higher preoperative NS (Modified Frailty Index 2.45 versus 3.06, P < 0.05; NS 16.09 versus 12.94, P < 0.01). Preoperative NS was the most significant variable that predicted poor patient prognosis (odds ratio 0.84; 95% confidence interval 0.73-0.96). For ASA 3 and ASA 4, the grade of daily personal independence in activities showed a positive correlation with survival (P < 0.001).

NS can be a very useful and quick tool to evaluate surgical risk in emergency surgery. Our study supports the use of NS in the perioperative evaluation prior to emergency surgery.