Colon procedures top list of worst emergency general surgery outcomes

Editor's Note

Seven emergency general surgery procedures account for about 80% of all admissions, deaths, complications, and inpatient costs, this study finds.

The seven procedures are:

• partial colectomy
• small bowel resection
• cholecystectomy
• operative management of peptic ulcer disease
• lysis of peritoneal adhesions
• appendectomy
• laparotomy.

These seven procedures represent the greatest clinical burden and may serve as the focus of future quality and benchmarking efforts to improve care of emergency general surgery patients, the authors say.

Importance Emergency general surgery (EGS) represents 11% of surgical admissions and 50% of surgical mortality in the United States. However, there is currently no established definition of the EGS procedures. Objective To define a set of procedures accounting for at least 80% of the national burden of operative EGS.