[Risk factors, preoperative delay and mortality in surgical gerontologic interventions]

A total of 1026 patients over 65 years of age underwent abdominal surgery during the period from 22 September 1987 to 12 February 1992 at the Surgical Department of Aachen Technical University. The data of these patients were analysed with respect to pre-operative risk factors, pre-operative rest period, their history and mortality. The following most important pre-operative risk factors were considered: cardiovascular diseases (45.9%), hypertension (28.7%), pulmonary diseases (19.4%) and diabetes mellitus (16.6%). Patients without pre-operative risk factors showed the lowest mortality rates if the pre-operative rest period was 1-2 days only, whereas patients with four or more risk factors showed the lowest mortality rates if the period of rest was 10-14 days. Mortality after emergency intervention (16.54%) was about three times as high as after elective surgery (5.54%). The anamnesis was 2-10 months for 30% of the patients whereas 8.2% of the patients reported a history of complaints of less than 24 h.