• B Schwilk, R Muche, H Treiber, A Brinkmann, M Georgieff, and U Bothner.
• Department of Anaesthesiology, University of Ulm, Germany. bernhard.schwilk@medizin.uni-ulm.de
• J Clin Monit Comput. 1998 May 1; 14 (4): 283-94.

ObjectiveTo develop a severity index of anaesthetic risk that predicts relevant perioperative adverse events in adults.DesignProspective cross-sectional study.SettingDepartment of anaesthesiology at one university hospital.Patients26907 consecutive anaesthetic procedures in patients over 15 years of age and a complete preoperative evaluation. Patients undergoing cardiac and obstetric surgery were excluded.Measurements And Main ResultsDemographic data, preoperative health status, type of anaesthesia, operative procedures, and perioperative incidents (standardised on a national basis) were acquired by means of a computerised anaesthetic record system. Occurrence of at least one perioperative event with impact on postanaesthetic care was computed by a multivariate logistic regression model against 17 variables with different characteristics representing possible risk factors. Fourteen variables proved to be independent risk factors. The weighting of the variables was expressed in scores which added up to form a simple index for each patient. Patients without major risk factors (0-10 points) had a 0.3% risk of suffering from a relevant incident. Patients with more than 60 points had a 28.6% risk. The results were well demonstrated by cross-validation.ConclusionsThe index seems to reflect the risk of relevant perioperative incidents. It can be used for audit purposes. In daily routine, the index could focus our attention on patients with increased perioperative risk. However, it is limited in detecting particular constellations of factors which interact on each other with regard to perioperative risk.

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