Preoperative risk stratification and methods to reduce risk

Abstract

Aging increases the likelihood that a patient will have an operative procedure. Approximately 12% of those aged 45 to 60 years are operated on each year, and this number will increase to more than 21 % by the year 2025. 1 Whereas operations performed on patients older than 50 years of age were contraindicated in the past, an increasingly larger number of elderly patients are undergoing surgery at present. Studies of perioperative outcomes in the elderly have shown a decline in perioperative mortality rate from 20% in the 1960s2 to 10% in the 1970s3 to 5%-8% in the 1980s.4 These relatively low mortality rates have been attributed to improvement in anesthetic and surgical care.5 As a result, many patients, including those who are elderly, do quite well after surgery and have improved quality of life as a result of their surgery. © 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.