Postoperative Complications in Obese and Non-obese Patients

Excerpt

Major initiatives are currently been implemented to reduce the risk of complications in surgery. One of these is the campaign launched by The Institute for Health Care Improvement (http://​www.​ihi.​org/​IHI/​Programs/​Campaign/​ “Save 100K lives”), the objective of which is to assure that preventive measures known to reduce complications—one of these being wound infection—are applied in every case, consequently resulting in the saving of lives. In the case of wound infection, these measures include the proper use of prophylactic antibiotics, strict glycemic control, the use of clippers rather than shaving, temperature control, and proper oxygenation and, if applied consistently, they should significantly reduce the risk of complications. …