[Intraoperative crisis and surgical Apgar score].

Intraoperative crisis is an inevitable event to anesthesiologists. The crisis requires effective and coordinated management once it happened but it is difficult to manage the crises properly under extreme stressful situation. Recently, it is reported that the use of surgical crisis checklists is associated with significant improvement in the management of operating-room crises in a high-fidelity simulation study. Careful preoperative evaluation, proper intraoperative management and using intraoperative crisis checklists will be needed for safer perioperative care in the future. Postoperative complication is a serious public health problem. It reduces the quality of life of patients and raises medical cost. Careful management of surgical patients is required according to their postoperative condition for preventing postoperative complications. A 10-point surgical Apgar score, calculated from intraoperative estimated blood loss, lowest mean arterial pressure, and lowest heart rate, is a simple and available scoring system for predicting postoperative complications. It undoubtedly predicts higher than average risk of postoperative complications and death within 30 days of surgery. Surgical Apgar score is a bridge between proper intraoperative and postoperative care. Anesthesiologists should make effort to reduce the postoperative complication and this score is a tool for it.