Loading...
Approximately 20% of U.S. residents smoke cigarettes, and at least the same percentage of patients who undergo surgery are current smokers. Although the deleterious long-term effects of smoking have been well documented, previous studies linking smoking to surgical risk were limited due to small or single-institution cohorts and incomplete follow-up.
Researchers performed a retrospective analysis of data collected between 2005 and 2008 from more than 600,000 U.S. noncardiac surgical patients. Current smokers (defined as those who reported smoking in the year prior to surgery) were 1.4 times more likely than never-smokers to die within 30 days of surgery, and current smokers had significantly greater risks for pneumonia (odds ratio, 2.1), unp…