Major gynecologic surgery in the elderly female 65 years of age and older W. SHANDS McKEITHEN.
JR.,
M.D.
Saint Petersburg, Flm·ida
A total of 185 cases were reviewed of major gynecologic surgery peiformed upon women 65 years rif age and older from 1970 to 1973 at a 350 bed community hospital. Each private staff physician operated t~pon his private patient. There were I I 2 vaginal operatioru fltrformed, mostly for pelvic relaxation problems, and 73 abdominal operations. Forty-two patients had surgery for cancer. There were nine postoperative complications and only two deaths. It can be concluded from this study that the elderly female can tolerate ma:jar gynecologic surgery Vel) well in a modem-day hospital setting.
operative death-a mortality rate of 0.3 per cent. Herron and associates, 6 in a 1960 study of 600 major operations of all types on patients over 70 years of age, reported an over-all mortality rate of 20.5 per cent. In 1972, Burnette and McCaffrey7 reported 2 review from 1965 to 1969 of 608 patients over 70 years of age who had all types of major surgery with a mortality rate of 13.3 per cent that had been reduced t
JR.,
M.D.
Saint Petersburg, Flm·ida
A total of 185 cases were reviewed of major gynecologic surgery peiformed upon women 65 years rif age and older from 1970 to 1973 at a 350 bed community hospital. Each private staff physician operated t~pon his private patient. There were I I 2 vaginal operatioru fltrformed, mostly for pelvic relaxation problems, and 73 abdominal operations. Forty-two patients had surgery for cancer. There were nine postoperative complications and only two deaths. It can be concluded from this study that the elderly female can tolerate ma:jar gynecologic surgery Vel) well in a modem-day hospital setting.
operative death-a mortality rate of 0.3 per cent. Herron and associates, 6 in a 1960 study of 600 major operations of all types on patients over 70 years of age, reported an over-all mortality rate of 20.5 per cent. In 1972, Burnette and McCaffrey7 reported 2 review from 1965 to 1969 of 608 patients over 70 years of age who had all types of major surgery with a mortality rate of 13.3 per cent that had been reduced t
