Postoperative Mortality and Morbidity in French Patients Undergoing Colorectal Surgery

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Abstract
Knowledge of the true frequency of both mortality and morbidity is crucial in planning health care and research and identifying risk factors. Despite improvement in surgical technique, bowel preparation, and prophylactic antibiotics, colorectal surgery was associated with a 5% to 6% mortality rate and a 20% to 40% morbidity rate.1-3 However, most studies about outcomes after potential colorectal resection have been retrospective analyses from highly specialized centers and often lack detailed information on how preoperative variables affected morbidity and mortality risks. Furthermore, few data have been reported so far from population-based studies that would more accurately reflect the situation in nonspecialized centers over time. To our knowledge, only 5 prospective studies,4-8 including more than 1000 patients, have recently reported either mortality or morbidity rates for colorectal surgery. Except for 1 study,7 no multivariate logistic regression analyses for both mortality and morbidity were performed. Furthermore, no study reported inhospital stay.