Publication:

Evaluation of possum scoring system in patients undergoing laparotomy

Background Prediction of complications is an essential part of risk management in surgery. Knowing which patient is at risk of developing complications contributes to the quality of surgical care and cost reduction in surgery. Among the variety of scoring systems used to identify the “high risk” patient POSSUM scoring is the most widely used.

Methods Patients undergoing laparotomy were selected serially and their physiological severity score on admission and operative severity scored at the end of 30days and compared with the POSSUM predicted score.

Results In the elective surgery group, patients with morbidity correlated with high POSSUM scores but due to low overall morbidity conclusions could not be drawn while in the emergency group predicted morbidity correlated well with observed results. The low overall mortality in the study group precluded meaningful analysis.

Conclusions POSSUM scoring system has an undeniable advantage in this set up for better patient counseling, improving the surgical outcomes in both emergency and elective wards and for better management of limited resources and manpower.