Mortality risk factors in lobectomies: Single-institution study

The need to identify the risk factors (RFs) predictive of mortality after pulmonary lobectomy has fuelled several single- or multi-institution studies, without establishing a prediction model of the generally accepted risk. Each single-institution study offers its own RFs, which corroborated with the RFs published in other multicentric studies may allow a better prediction of postoperative mortality for specific categories of patients. The aim of our study was to identify the 30-day mortality RFs in our lobectomy patients and to compare our results with those published in literature. We therefore analysed the influence of 49 perioperative parameters on postoperative mortality of consecutive lobectomy patients. The 192 lobectomy patients enrolled had malignant (81.25%) and infectious conditions (12.5%) and a 2.6% mortality rate. The results of our study support the following perioperative RF associated with a high mortality rate: thrombocytosis, chronic obstructive bronchopulmonary disease (COPD), digestive and hepatic comorbidities, neoadjuvant chemotherapy, tuberculosis, the American Society of Anesthesiologists rating and the characteristics of postoperative drainage. In conclusion, these RFs may serve as the factors to consider when calculating the mortality rate after lobectomy, in preoperative selection as well as in instruments for the assessment of postoperative results.