Preoperative Assessment and Fitness for Surgery

Key points

• • Preoperative assessment judges whether a patient is fit for surgery and anaesthesia, and finds problems that can be improved first.
• • It reviews the history, the medicines and allergies, past anaesthetics, and other illnesses such as heart, lung and kidney disease.
• • Examination and tests, chosen to suit the patient and the operation, look for anaemia, infection and organ problems.
• • The overall fitness is often summed up with a simple grade of physical status, which relates to the risk.
• • Some medicines and habits, such as smoking and certain drugs, are adjusted before surgery to lower the risk.