[The prediction of postoperative septic complications via nutritional parameters. I. The prognostic formulation]

A study has been made of the influence of the nutritional situation on post-operative infections in a sample of 217 patients. A nutritional evaluation file was prepared for each of them, based on anthropometric and analytical tests and delayed hypersensitivity skin tests (PCHR) during the first 24 hours of hospital admission. The criteria whereby a post-operative infection was considered to be present were surgical wound infection, intra-abdominal infection, pneumonia and post-operative fever of 38.5 degrees C or more without a demonstrable septic focus. They were also evaluated quantitatively using Elebeute and Stoner's sepsis index. In the study of the anthropometric parameters, the relation was noted between the body mass index (BMI) and usual weight Percentage (HW%), and septic risk areas (RA) were defined, as a new anthropometric data. A total of 33 patients (15.2%) showed some type of post-surgical infection, manifested in this group by an alteration of the nutritional state revealed by a lower BMI, increased weight loss, a lower albumin rate than in the control group. The septic prognostic value of the RAS is confirmed: no relation was found between septic complications and the PCHR. Finally a multiple regression procedure was prepared between the Elebeute and Stoner sepsis index and all the nutritional parameters studied, to give the following nutritional sepsis risk prognosis index (RSN): NSR = 14,265 - 1,764 x Albumin - 1,427 x Risk Area.