Reducing Cardiac Risk in Noncardiac Surgery

Abstract

“Avoid hypotension.” That recommendation has appeared at the end of many preoperative consultation notes for patients undergoing major noncardiac surgery. This not-so-helpful advice has reflected the state of the science of perioperative cardiac risk reduction. A great deal of research provides insight into how to identify patients at moderate and high risk.¹⁴ Very little is known about strategies that might improve their outcomes.The era in which physicians can only guess at how to reduce a patient's risk of perioperative cardiac complications seems to be ending, however, as demonstrated by the study by Poldermans et al.⁵ in this issue . . .