Rectal cancer surgery in older people does not increase postoperative complications - a retrospective analysis

World Journal of Surgical Oncology

Research

Martina Mittlböck¹  Jagdeep Singh²  Katharina Kosma²  Sarah Brus²  Stefan Riss²  Anton Stift² 

[1] Center for Medical Statistics, Informatics and Intelligent Systems, Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria;Department of Surgery, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, A-1090, Vienna, Austria;

关键词: Rectal cancer;    Rectal surgery;    Older patients;    Risk factors;    Postoperative complications;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1477-7819-12-355

 received in 2014-08-25, accepted in 2014-11-06,  发布年份 2014

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundRectal cancer surgery in the older population remains a highly controversial topic. The present study was designed to assess whether older patients had an increased risk for postoperative complications after rectal resection for malignancies.MethodsConsecutive patients (n =627), who underwent rectal cancer resection at a single institution, were included in the study and analyzed retrospectively. Short-term complications were compared between patients ≥80 years (n =55) and <80 years (n =572). Additionally, predictive factors for postoperative complications were analyzed.ResultsThe older aged group showed a significantly higher rate of co-morbidities compared to controls, in terms of cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases (P =0.002, P =0.006). In older patients, a Hartmann’s procedure and transanal endoscopic microsurgery (TEM) were performed most frequently (P <0.0001).The overall complication rate was 39% (n =244) (medical: n =59 (9%), surgical: n =185 (30%)), including 24 (44%) complications in the older aged group (medical: n =6 (11%), surgical: n =18 (33%)). Notably, the incidence of surgical and medical complications showed no significant difference between patients and controls (P =0.58, P =0.69).Neurological and cardiovascular disorders were associated with an increased risk for a eventful postoperative course in the older aged group (P =0.03, P =0.04).ConclusionsRectal cancer resection can be performed safely in selected older patients. Age itself should not be considered as a risk factor for postoperative complications.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Singh et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2014. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.