Risk factors for 30-day complications after cancer surgery in geriatric patients: a secondary analysis.

BACKGROUND: The aim was to analyse the association between severity of complications up to 30 days after surgery and pre-operative nutritional and physical performance parameters.

METHODS: The participants were a subsample of the previously published PERATECS study (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01278537) and included 517 onco-geriatric patients aged ≥ 65 years, undergoing thoracoabdominal, gynaecological, or urological surgery. Post-operative complications were classified according to the Clavien Classification System (CCS). Independent risk factors related to the severity of complications, defined as major complications (CCS IIIa-V) and graded complications (CCS grade 0-V), were analysed using logistic and ordinal regression, respectively.

RESULTS: In total, 132 patients suffered major post-operative complications. The development of major post-operative complications was independently associated with body mass index (BMI) < 20 kg/m2 , hypoalbuminaemia (< 30 g/l), longer duration of surgery, and specific tumour sites (upper gastrointestinal, gynaecological, colorectal) (all P < 0.05). Higher-grade complications were predicted by Timed Up and Go (TUG) > 20 s, hypoalbuminaemia (< 30 g/l), higher American Society of Anesthesiologists (ASA) status III-IV, longer duration of surgery (> 165 min), and specific tumour sites (upper gastrointestinal, gynaecological) (all P < 0.05). Mini Nutritional Assessment (MNA) scores and weight loss were not independent risk factors for the severity of complications.

CONCLUSIONS: Nutritional and physical performance risk factors that predicted the severity of complications differed between major and higher-grade post-operative complications, but hypoalbuminaemia independently predicted both. The results support the need for pre-operative risk screening. Due to the explorative nature of the study, further research is required in larger cohorts to corroborate these findings.