The Incidence of Abnormal Preoperative Testing Among Elective Surgery Patients in a Referral Hospital in Southern Saudi Arabia

Background Preoperative investigations are important to assess the clinical condition of patients who undergo elective surgical procedures. However, there is still debate about the usefulness of performing preoperative investigations. We aimed to determine the prevalence of routine preoperative inve...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Curēus (Palo Alto, CA) CA), 2024-04, Vol.16 (4), p.e57448-e57448
Main Authors: Alkhathami, Abdulmajeed, Alameer, Ahmed, Alqarni, Osama A, Aljuaid, Amal T, Alrimthi, Elaf S, Alaklabi, Saeed Nasser A, Ibrahim, Mutasim E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesiology
Asymptomatic
Blood tests
Creatinine
Diabetes
Elective surgery
Electrocardiography
Females
General Surgery
Hemoglobin
Hepatitis B
Hospitals
Hypertension
Laboratories
Marital status
Neutrophils
Patient safety
Phosphatase
Potassium
Respiratory diseases
Surgical outcomes
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Summary:Background Preoperative investigations are important to assess the clinical condition of patients who undergo elective surgical procedures. However, there is still debate about the usefulness of performing preoperative investigations. We aimed to determine the prevalence of routine preoperative investigation abnormalities among elective general surgery patients. Methodology This retrospective hospital-record-based study was conducted at the King Abdullah Hospital in Bisha Province, southern Saudi Arabia. General and clinical data of 968 patients who underwent elective surgical interventions from February 2022 to January 2023 were retrieved and analyzed. Result A total of 968 patients (578 females and 390 males) aged between 14 and 80 years were included in the study. Four hundred and eleven (42.5%) patients were in the age group of 40 years and above. The commonly detected comorbidities among the patients were diabetes (15%), hypertension (12%), respiratory diseases (7.5%), and cardiac diseases (2.5%). Abnormalities related to hemoglobin (31%), total leucocyte count (12.7%), and platelets (8.5%) were found in 968 patients. Around 15% of patients had increased creatinine levels. Hypokalemia was observed in 6.8% of patients. Increased liver enzymes were reported in limited proportions (10% to 14%) of patients. Slightly abnormal radiological findings were reported for chest X-ray (CXR) (2.8%), electrocardiogram (ECG) (2%), and Doppler echocardiography (Echo) (0.8%). A statistically significant association between the age of the patient and abnormal findings of ECG (p
ISSN:2168-8184
2168-8184
DOI:10.7759/cureus.57448