[Significance of skin tests in pre-operative assessment]

The authors report their experience of skin tests used to investigate cellular immunity in the detection of a high risk population pre-operatively. Over an 18 month period, 114 patients about to undergo major surgery were tested. The following three antigens were used: candinin, varidase and tuberculin. Results confirmed the prognostic value of these tests in terms of the overall prediction of complications (75 per cent in anergic individuals as against 24,4 per cent in reactors--p less than and deaths (45 per cent in anergics as against 8,5 per cent in reactors--p less than). Similarly, complications and deaths due to infection were more numerous in the anergic group (respectively 45 per cent and 25 per cent) than in the reactors (respectively 14,8 per cent and 4,2 per cent). Amongst factors which might influence the immune response, the authors studied successively the sex and age of the patients, pre-operative infection, neoplasia and undernutrition.