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Frailty — a vulnerability to adverse healthcare outcomes that often is age-related — should be considered when clinicians weigh benefits and harms of surgery. In this study, researchers used two U.S. quality improvement databases to assess postoperative mortality in patients classified as frail or very frail by the validated Risk Analysis Index. The intrinsic physiological stress of each surgical procedure was classified as low, intermediate, or high (according to a validated scoring system).
Findings from 2.7 million procedures in 9 noncardiac surgical specialties were as follows:
Overall postoperative mortality was about 1% at 30 days and 3.4% at 180 days.
Among patients classified as frail, 30-day mortality ranged from roughly 2% to 10% (de…