To find the role of postoperative fall in serum albumin as a predictor of outcome after major abdominal surgery

Abstract

Introduction: Surgical interventions lead to well-understood metabolic, neuroendocrine, and immune responses, and the stress responses to surgery contribute to increased postoperative complications. Pro-inflammatory cytokines increased due to surgical injury, leads to changes of circulating acute phase proteins, such as albumin and C-reactive protein. Aims and Objectives: To find the role of postoperative fall in serum albumin as a predictor of outcome after major abdominal surgery, perioperative levels of albumin, maximal fall in albumin in early postoperative period, postoperative albumin levels with type of approach and magnitude of surgery in terms of duration of surgery and estimated blood loss, grade of complications and length of hospital stay. Material and Methods: The prospective cohort study was conducted from June 2018 – December 2019 in the Department of Surgery of a tertiary care hospital of the Armed Forces in which 150 patients who underwent routine elective major surgeries. Results: Mean age of the patients was 52.33 ± 12.08 years. 68.67% of the patients were males and 31.33% were females. Maximum fall in serum albumin was observed on first post-operative day, which was higher in the patients who underwent open surgery (69.70%) than laparoscopic surgery (40.47%). Serum albumin levels were significantly lower on POD 1 in comparison to preoperative levels (p