Woubet Tefera Kassahun1, Holger Staab2, Ines Gockel2, Matthias Mehdorn2. 1. Faculty of Medicine, Clinic for Visceral, Transplantation, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany. Electronic address: woubet.kassahun@uniklinik-leipzig.de. 2. Faculty of Medicine, Clinic for Visceral, Transplantation, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, University of Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Surgical outcome to extremes of age is understudied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patient characteristics and incidence of postoperative morbidity and in-hospital mortality among patients aged 90 years and older who underwent surgery in comparison to younger controls. METHODS: Patients aged 90 years or older (n = 80; mean age, 92.36 ± 2.37) were matched for surgical treatment with patients aged 79 years or younger (n = 80; mean age, 55.98 ± 15.95) taken from the same cohort. RESULTS: The overall morbidity and mortality rates were 57.5% and 31.3% in the elderly vs. 47.5% and 23.1% in the younger group respectively. Patient groups aged 90 years or older and 79 years or younger each had 4 and 6 predictive factors for morbidity and 10 and 9 predictive factors for mortality respectively. CONCLUSION: while advanced age carries an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, it seems that age in itself is no barrier to surgery. Despite the comparably high prevalence of chronic disease, elderly patients in this study fared quite well.
BACKGROUND: Surgical outcome to extremes of age is understudied. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the patient characteristics and incidence of postoperative morbidity and in-hospital mortality among patients aged 90 years and older who underwent surgery in comparison to younger controls. METHODS:Patients aged 90 years or older (n = 80; mean age, 92.36 ± 2.37) were matched for surgical treatment with patients aged 79 years or younger (n = 80; mean age, 55.98 ± 15.95) taken from the same cohort. RESULTS: The overall morbidity and mortality rates were 57.5% and 31.3% in the elderly vs. 47.5% and 23.1% in the younger group respectively. Patient groups aged 90 years or older and 79 years or younger each had 4 and 6 predictive factors for morbidity and 10 and 9 predictive factors for mortality respectively. CONCLUSION: while advanced age carries an increased risk of morbidity and mortality, it seems that age in itself is no barrier to surgery. Despite the comparably high prevalence of chronic disease, elderly patients in this study fared quite well.