Surgical Apgar Score predictive value for early postoperative organ dysfunction in cancer patients

Surgical APGAR Score (SAS) is based only on intraoperative data and has the advantage of being easy to calculate. Low SAS was associated with an increased risk for postoperative complications, but its utility for specific outcomes prediction, such as postoperative cardiovascular, renal, or metabolic dysfunction is less investigated. Our study aimed to investigate SAS predictive value for early postoperative organ dysfunction in a surgical oncological population.

This is a prospective observational study that enrolled all consecutive patients submitted to oncologic surgery over 20-days. Registered parameters included demographics, comorbidities, diagnosis and surgery data, SAS score, postoperative complications, organ dysfunction and in-hospital mortality. SAS predictive value for postoperative organ dysfunction was assessed using logistic regression and ROC curves.

The study included 205 oncological patients with a mean age (standard deviation) of 60 (12.8) years. SAS was between 8 and 10 in 60% of patients and between 0 and 7 in 40% of patients. Postoperative complications developed in 33 patients (16.1%) and organ dysfunction in 26 patients (12.7%). The rates of postoperative complications, organ dysfunction and mortality, were significantly higher in patients with a low SAS (0-7) than high SAS (8-10). SAS had a low discrimination capacity to distinguish between patients who will develop postoperative complications and those who will not (AUROC 0.65) but was more accurate in identifying surgical oncological patients at risk for cardiovascular and metabolic dysfunction (AUROC 0.83 and 0.85 respectively).

SAS may be a useful tool to identify cancer surgery patients at risk for postoperative cardiovascular and metabolic dysfunction.