Copyright
©The Author(s) 2019. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Jun 21, 2019; 25(23): 2833-2838
Published online Jun 21, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i23.2833
Published online Jun 21, 2019. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v25.i23.2833
Postoperative complications in gastrointestinal surgery: A “hidden” basic quality indicator
Roberto De la Plaza Llamas, José M Ramia, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Guadalajara 19002, Spain
Author contributions: De la Plaza Llamas R and Ramia JM conceived the study; De la Plaza Llamas R design the study; De la Plaza LLamas R performed the reseach; De la Plaza Llamas R and Ramia JM drafted the manuscript; both authors approved the final version of the article.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors have no conflict of interest to declare.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Roberto De la Plaza Llamas, FACS, MD, MSc, PhD, Associate Professor, Doctor, Medical Assistant, Surgeon, Surgical Oncologist, Department of General and Digestive Surgery, Hospital Universitario de Guadalajara, Calle Donante de sangre s/n, Guadalajara 19002, Spain. rdplazal@sescam.jccm.es
Telephone: +34-94-9209241 Fax: +34-94-9209218
Received: March 22, 2019
Peer-review started: March 22, 2019
First decision: April 5, 2019
Revised: April 11, 2019
Accepted: April 19, 2019
Article in press: April 21, 2019
Published online: June 21, 2019
Peer-review started: March 22, 2019
First decision: April 5, 2019
Revised: April 11, 2019
Accepted: April 19, 2019
Article in press: April 21, 2019
Published online: June 21, 2019
Core Tip
Core tip: Postoperative complications represent a basic quality indicator for measuring surgical outcomes, but at present they are not systematically recorded. A more thorough assessment of their impact could help to determine the real morbidity, establish measures for improvement, increase efficiency and identify benchmarking services. The use of the Clavien Dindo Classification of Complications and the Comprehensive Complication Index would allow us to compare them. Surgical staff must be encouraged to report and classify complications and to record 90-d morbidity rates in all patients. External audits are necessary, and ensuring transparency in the reporting of the results is an urgent obligation.