Annam Qayoom, Baby Shanaz Geelani, Yasir Iqbal Lone, Muhiba Shabir and Sana Khan*
Background: Postoperative pulmonary complications are an important factor responsible for mortality and morbidity. It’s one of the significant complications following surgery. It includes a spectrum of clinical conditions that account for a substantial proportion of risk related to anaesthesia and surgery.
Aim & Objectives: To evaluate the incidence of postoperative pulmonary complications and factors responsible for the development of post- operative pulmonary complications in patients undergoing emergency laparotomies under general anaesthesia in our setup.
Methods: Prospective observational study conducted in the Postgraduate Department of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care Medicine, Government Medical College Srinagar. The study was conducted over a period of 18 months from 2020 to 2022. After obtaining approval from the ethical committee and written informed consent, 1063 patients greater than 21 years of age undergoing emergency laparotomies under general anesthesia were included. Post-Operative Pulmonary Complications (POPCs) were identified based on routine clinical diagnosis as per EPCO definitions, fall in SPO2 <94%, RR>20, any abnormality in CXR, any added sound on auscultation, raised temperature and any derangement in ABGs. Length of hospital stay was also noted for all the patients.
Results: Out of 1063 subjects recruited that underwent emergency abdominal surgeries, 250 developed POPCS. A significant cumulative association of surgical diagnosis with post-surgical complications, albeit the prevalence of post-surgical complications varied in various surgical diagnosis. We did not observe any significant difference in the prevalence of post-surgical complications when the subjects were classified based on the presence or absence of pre-operative pulmonary complications. A positive correlation between the duration of surgery and the prevalence of surgical complications. (p<0.001) was observed among the study population.
Conclusion: In the present study, given a reasonably large sample size, we were able to identify certain risk factors of POPC in our population, however more replicative studies with a larger sample size are warranted to substantiate these findings so that future preventive strategies can be formulated for preventing POPCs in patients undergoing laparotomies.