Postgraduate medical journal
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Perioperative morbidity is associated with reduced long term survival. Comorbid disease, cardiovascular illness, and functional capacity can predispose patients to adverse surgical outcomes. Accurate risk stratification would facilitate informed patient consent and identify those individuals who may benefit from specific perioperative interventions. ⋯ Probably the most widely used cardiac risk score is the Lee Revised Cardiac Risk Index, although it has limited validity in some patient populations and for non-cardiac outcomes. Bespoke clinical scoring systems responding to dynamic changes in population characteristics over time, such as those developed by the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program, are more precise, but require considerable resources to implement. The combination of objective clinical variables with information from novel techniques such as cardiopulmonary exercise testing and biomarker assays, may improve the predictive precision of clinical risk scores used to guide perioperative management.
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The use of cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) as a preoperative risk stratification tool for a range of non-cardiopulmonary surgery is increasing. The utility of CPET in this role is dependent on the technology being able to identify accurately and reliably those patients at increased risk of perioperative events when compared with existing risk stratification tools. This article identifies and reviews systematically the current literature regarding the use of CPET as a preoperative tool for stratifying risk in major non-cardiopulmonary surgery. ⋯ Several studies also identify that CPET variables may be used in combination with non-CPET variables to increase perioperative risk prediction accuracy. These findings illustrate that CPET has the capacity to identify patients at increased risk of adverse outcome before a range of non-cardiopulmonary surgical procedures. Further research is required to optimise its use, potentially by combining CPET results with alternative methods of risk stratification.
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To assess the effect of proximate or immediate feedback during an intensive training session. The authors hypothesised that provision of feedback during a training session would improve performance and learning curves. ⋯ The provision of standardised proximate feedback was associated with significantly fewer errors and an improved learning curve. Reducing errors in the skills lab environment should lead to safer clinical performance. This may help to make training more efficient and improve patient safety.