[Approach to therapeutic risk by study of operative mortality. From 102 postoperative deaths between 1975 and 1984 at the Fondation Bergonié].

A retrospective analysis of operative mortality in the cancer surgery department of the Fondation Bergonié between 1975 and 1984 allowed priority objectives to be defined requiring maximum efforts of the treating team. During this decade, 18,582 patients underwent surgery; 15,794 "first hand" operations were for cases not previously treated. Amongst the latter, 102 died within 90 days of surgery, 45 due to multifocal or apparently isolated pulmonary infection and 57 without any known infectious context. Separating patients into two groups: periods 1975-1979 and 1980-1984, demonstrated a notable decrease in postoperative mortality from 68 to 34. This improvement was due mainly to a reduction in deaths from infection (from 37 to 8 patients in the period 1980-1984). This marked improvement was probably the result of various combined causes: Mastery of parenteral nutrition enabling patients to be operated upon in better condition, or to tolerate possible complications better; Use of routine antibiotic therapy before surgery to digestive tube or ORL regions. These encouraging result suggest the need for enlargement of indications for routine prophylactic antibiotic therapy.