Surgical Apgar Score, Predictor of Post-Emergency Abdominal Surgery Outcome

To provide consistently low incidence of major complications for patient undergoing any operation, recognizing patients at high risk of developing a complication will contribute substantially to quality of operation and of cost reduction in surgery. Marked variability of post-operative outcomes is usually found due to difference in patient’s preoperative co-morbid and risk factors [1]. The cardinal objective in the emergency situation is preparation and resuscitation for correction of deranged physiology. Inadequacy of which is a major contributory factor to morbidity and mortality. Intra-operative variable such as heart rate, blood pressure, arterial saturation, tissue perfusion and the surgical stress further contribute to variability in patient’s risk of developing complications. However, the degree to which intraoperative performance further contributes to variation in patients’ risk of complications remains unclear [1]. In operating room, surgeons have relied principally on "gutfeeling", instead of their objective assessment of the operative course for postoperative prognostication [2]. The Surgical Apgar Score (SAS) was determined by [3]. The SAS has been validated mainly in the west but less numbers of studies are currently available from Hospitals in our country. Here we prospectively evaluate postoperative complications according to SAS score.