This study evaluated the use of the POSSUM (Physiological and Operative Severity Score for Enumeration of Mortality and Morbidity) score for predicting mortality in surgical practice. In this study, 416 surgical patients admitted into ICUs for post-surgical care were analyzed. Both predicted and actual mortality rates were compared, according to four risk groups: 0-4%, 5-14%, 15-49%, 50% and over, and the area under the ROC curve of the POSSUM and APACHE II for mortality. The POSSUM and APACHE II scores overestimated the risk of death. The area under the ROC curve of the POSSUM was 0.762, and under APACHE II was 0.737, suggesting the use of POSSUM as an auxiliary tool to predict the risk of death in surgical patients.
Intensive Care Units; Surgery; Mortality; Risk index
