Background
Anticipating postoperative evolution in surgical patients is an important issue in our daily practice.
We demonstrated in a previous study that there were multiple predictors of postoperative outcome, including American Society of Anesthesiologists status (ASA), transfusion, emergency, surgery and age. A detailed description of postoperative outcome was undertaken in children aged between 6 and 10 years old included in the initial study.
Objective
To describe postoperative outcomes in children aged between 6 and 10 years old included in the initial cohort in abdominal surgery, neurosurgery and orthopedics.
Methods
The secondary analysis of postoperative outcomes in children aged between 6 and 10 years old was retrospectively included in the initial study of 594 patients. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee.
Results
There were 88 patients with a mean age of 98.7±13.8 months.
The most common surgical interventions were scoliosis in 23 patients (26.1%), limb tumor resection in 8 patients (9.1%), femoral osteotomy in 6 patients (6.8%), intracerebral tumor resection in 6 patients (6.8%), intestinal resection in 5 patients (5.6%), Chiari’s malformation in 4 patients (4.5%), pelvic osteotomy in 4 patients (4.5%) and renal transplantation in 4 patients (4.5%).
Most patients (45%) were American Society of Anesthesiologists grade 3 (ASA 3), and 13 (14.8%) were ASA grade 4.
Twenty-two (25%) patients had intraoperative and/or postoperative complications (organ dysfunction or sepsis). Two patients (2.3%) had intraoperative hemorrhage, 1 patient (1.1%) had intraoperative difficult intubation, and 1 patient experienced intraoperative anaphylaxis. Nine patients (10.2%) had postoperative neurologic failure, and 2 (2.3%) had postoperative cardio-circulatory failure. Three patients (3.4%) had postoperative septicemia, 2 patients (2.3%) had postoperative pulmonary and urinary sepsis, and 1 patient (1.1%) had postoperative abdominal sepsis. 3 patients (3.4%) had re-operations. 42(47.7%) patients had intra-operative transfusion.
There was 1 in-hospital death (1.1%). The median total length of hospital stay was 9 days [5-16].
Conclusion
Twenty-five percent of the patients had intraoperative and/or postoperative complications, and most of them were ASA grade ³3. Integrating goal-directed therapies to optimize intraoperative management in these patients is necessary to improve postoperative outcomes in surgical pediatric patients.