Journal of investigative medicine : the official publication of the American Federation for Clinical Research
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American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) created the Surgical Risk Calculator, to allow physicians to offer patients a risk-adjusted 30-day surgical outcome prediction. This tool has not yet been validated in plastic surgery. A retrospective analysis of all plastic surgery-specific complications from a quality assurance database from September 2013 through July 2015 was performed. ⋯ The ACS Risk Calculator does not present rates for these risks. While most frequent outcomes fall into general risk calculator categories, the difference in predicted versus actual complication rates indicates that this tool does not accurately predict outcomes in plastic surgery. The ACS Surgical Risk Calculator is not a valid tool for the field of plastic surgery without further research to develop accurate risk stratification tools.