Validation of surgical APGAR score in abdominal surgeries at a tertiary care teaching hospital in South India

Background: A ten-point surgical APGAR score (SAS) has been previously developed and validated that provides surgeons with a simple, objective and direct rating of operative performance and risk. This score has been evaluated in different types of surgeries till date. We validated SAS in both elective and emergency abdominal surgeries separately which was not done previously. Methods: In this prospective, observational and longitudinal study, 105 surgical cases undergoing open abdominal surgeries were studied. The SAS was calculated for all patients, patients were followed up for the occurrence of any major complications or mortality during hospital stay after surgery. All the patients were divided into three groups based on their SAS score (high risk: SAS 0–4, moderate risk: SAS 5–7 and low risk: SAS 8–10) using a threshold that has been previously established. Results: The occurrence of major complications was significantly higher in high-risk SAS group (12%) than in the moderate risk group (5%). In the low-risk SAS group, the occurrence of major complications was low (1%). The mortality rate in high-risk SAS was more than that in low-risk SAS group with statistical significance both in elective and emergency cases. Conclusions: In our study, we found that patients who belong to high-risk SAS group were significantly associated with post-operative major complications and mortality in both elective and emergency surgeries. A patient with low intraoperative SAS should be considered at risk and monitored meticulously. Trial Registration: Clinical Trials Registry-India (CTRI) identifier No. CTRI/2019/02/017567.