Risk Index Is Adequate for Predicting Perioperative Cardiac Complications

But the RCRI is not so predictive for death or for complications of vascular surgery.

A widely recommended simple tool for predicting complications of noncardiac surgery, the Revised Cardiac Risk Index (RCRI; JW Gen Med Sep 17 1999) includes six equally weighted elements: coronary artery disease, heart failure, cerebrovascular disease, insulin-requiring diabetes, renal insufficiency, and high-risk procedures (intrathoracic, intraperitoneal, or suprainguinal vascular). In a systematic review, researchers assessed the predictive ability of the RCRI across a variety of surgical procedures in 24 cohort studies (involving 792,740 patients).

Results were summarized as the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), which summarizes sensitivity and specificity and communicates the likelihood that the RCRI correctly…

Reviewing Author

Richard Saitz, MD, MPH, FACP, FASAM