Delayed hypersensitivity testing for the prediction of postoperative complications.

One hundred and sixty-six patients undergoing elective major laparotomy were skin tested preoperatively with four common recall antigens in an attempt to correlate preoperative cell-mediated immune status with postoperative septic complications. Nineteen patients were anergic, 22 relatively anergic and the remaining 125 reacted to two or more of the antigens and were regarded as normally reactive. No significant differences in morbidity or mortality were found between patients who had depressed delayed cutaneous hypersensitivity reactions and those who reacted normally. We conclude that identification of those patients with depressed cell-mediated immunity preoperatively does not help in predicting postoperative problems.