Marina Boruk, M.D., from the State University of New York Downstate Medical Center, Brooklyn, and colleagues, conducted a retrospective study of medical records, between January 1999 and January 2004, to determine if age alone is a predictor of outcomes for major head and neck surgery. The review included 157 cases of patients who had undergone a major head and neck surgical procedure, of whom 31 ( 20 percent ) were 70 years or older. The age of patients ranged from nine to 95 years, with an average of 56.1 years. Fifty-nine percent ( 92 ) were men and 41 percent ( 65 ) were women.
Patient's age alone was not found to be a predictive indicator of outcomes for major head and neck surgery. Time under general anesthesia ( TUGA ) was the only factor found to be consistently related to surgical complications and length of hospital stay. TUGA ranged from 75 to 1,160 minutes, with a median ( middle value ) of 240 minutes. The odds of a patient having a complication increased by 0.6 percent with every minute of anesthesia, therefore the odds of having a major complication increased by 36 percent every hour under anesthesia. The odds of having any complication ( major or minor ) increased by 18 to 36 percent for every hour under anesthesia, depending on the analysis. Being 70 years or older was not associated with complications or length of stay ( LOS ) in any of the researchers' analyses. The median length of stay for patients was three days in males and two days in females.
�Our findings support the growing acceptance that age, in and of itself, is not a risk factor for major head and neck surgery. � Care should be taken to carefully control preoperative comorbid conditions and offer the appropriate medical care,� the authors write. �TUGA showed a statistically significant relationship with complication rate and hospital LOS in multivariate analyses. This relationship held true for all age groups.�