Association of Preoperative Patient Frailty and Operative Stress With Postoperative Mortality.

Importance: Patients with frailty have higher risk for postoperative mortality and complications; however, most research has focused on small groups of high-risk procedures. The associations among frailty, operative stress, and mortality are poorly understood. Objective: To assess the association between frailty and mortality at varying levels of operative stress as measured by the Operative Stress Score, a novel measure created for this study. Design, Setting, and Participants: This retrospective cohort study included veterans in the Veterans Administration Surgical Quality Improvement Program from April 1, 2010, through March 31, 2014, who underwent a noncardiac surgical procedure at Veterans Health Administration Hospitals and had information available on vital status (whether the patient was alive or deceased) at 1 year postoperatively. A Delphi consensus method was used to stratify surgical procedures into 5 categories of physiologic stress. Exposures: Frailty as measured by the Risk Analysis Index and operative stress as measured by the Operative Stress Score. Main Outcomes and Measures: Postoperative mortality at 30, 90, and 180 days. Results: Of 432 828 unique patients (401 453 males [92.8%]; mean (SD) age, 61.0 [12.9] years), 36 579 (8.5%) were frail and 9113 (2.1%) were very frail. The 30-day mortality rate among patients who were frail and underwent the lowest-stress surgical procedures (eg, cystoscopy) was 1.55% (95% CI, 1.20%-1.97%) and among patients with frailty who underwent the moderate-stress surgical procedures (eg, laparoscopic cholecystectomy) was 5.13% (95% CI, 4.79%-5.48%); these rates exceeded the 1% mortality rate often used to define high-risk surgery. Among patients who were very frail, 30-day mortality rates were higher after the lowest-stress surgical procedures (10.34%; 95% CI, 7.73%-13.48%) and after the moderate-stress surgical procedures (18.74%; 95% CI, 17.72%-19.80%). For patients who were frail and very frail, mortality continued to increase at 90 and 180 days, reaching 43.00% (95% CI, 41.69%-44.32%) for very frail patients at 180 days after moderate-stress surgical procedures. Conclusions and Relevance: We developed a novel operative stress score to quantify physiologic stress for surgical procedures. Patients who were frail and very frail had high rates of postoperative mortality across all levels of the Operative Stress Score. These findings suggest that frailty screening should be applied universally because low- and moderate-stress procedures may be high risk among patients who are frail.

The patterns and costs of the Da Vinci robotic surgery system in a large academic institution.

The da Vinci ™Robotic System (dVRS) is the latest advancement in laparoscopic surgery allowing the surgeon more accurate and precise control of instrumentation with an added three-dimensional image. Technology comes with a price, $1.3 million. Due to charitable contributions from the Durham family, the University of Nebraska was the eighth Medical Center in the USA to obtain a dVRS in June 2000. UNMC analyzed 224 dVRS surgical procedures from July 2000 to February 2007. These procedures were designated by surgical service and further scrutinized for length of stay, and cost. We also reviewed trends in operative usage, academic and public relations components with this innovative technology. The dVRS was used for multiple other purposes that were beneficial including research with engineering graduate students, training for surgical residents, display and demos as a means for public relations. Primarily general and urologic surgeons utilized the dVRS. General surgeons were the early adopters of the new technology, the greatest growth and utilization of the equipment has been in urologic procedures, which has outpaced general surgery in the past year. Cost analysis shows a subtle benefit with a reduced length of stay by an average of 4 days. Average direct costs were found to be greater with the dVRS by $1,470. Overall, the effects of the dVRS are vast reaching and are fundamental to the growth of an academic institution and continued progress in minimally invasive surgery.