[Predictive scores used during the anesthetic preoperative visit. Part 1. Assessment of postoperative complications]

Anesthesia is changing, moving from an intraoperative medicine to a transversal perioperative medicine. The evolution of the preoperative anesthetic consultation is part of this evolution. Recently, anesthesiologists attempt to categorize their patients to detect as early as possible those at risk of short, medium, and long-term complications. In that way, a personalized (individualized) anesthesia could be performed considering the patient's comorbidities as well as the type of surgery. Respect for the guidelines is easier to achieve with such personalized medicine. For this purpose, anesthesiologists can use predictive scores. In the last few years, there was an increase in the availability of these validated scores. A shared feature of these scores is to provide objectivity but also efficiency in their ability to be predictive while being easy and quick to apply in clinical practice. Thereby, anesthesiologists can inform the patient with more accurate information concerning their perioperative risks. Finally, these scores are part of a public health care policy that aims to reduce expenses by optimizing patient management and preoperative testing. These scores provide a global vision of the patient, which can be shared and understandable by the different practitioners.