title: Long-term outcome after anesthesia and surgery: remarks on the biology of a newly emerging principle in perioperative care.
abstract: There is a strong possibility that the risk from anesthesia and surgery carries over from the immediate perioperative period to more remote time points. This extended risk seems to influence the progression, severity, and complication rate of certain chronic illnesses, such as vascular heart disease and some of the malignancies, although other disease processes might be affected as well. With the recognition that the perioperative process could be responsible for later adverse events comes the need to reassess existing patient safety models, because some of the risk could be preventable. To confront these challenges, it is necessary to understand the underlying biology of this association, and immunology should be particularly helpful in this pursuit. It will be of special importance to integrate our knowledge of the host immune response to anesthesia and surgery with the recent revelations on the role of immunity in the progression of many of the chronic diseases. Additionally, we need to examine how genetic diversity or acquired defects alter the immune response to tissue injury and infection so that we can improve risk stratification and preemptive therapies. In the meantime, we must strive to improve short- and long-term outcomes by expanding our efforts to reduce disease activity preoperatively, to control the surgical stress response and infection rate, and to use tissue-preserving surgical techniques. Long-term patient safety after anesthesia and surgery is not a specialty-by-specialty endeavor; it requires a highly collaborative, institutional, and national effort to foster innovative research and health care process improvements.
authors.affiliation: Program of Molecular Perioperative Medicine and Genomics, Department of Anesthesiology and Perioperative Medicine, Medical College of Georgia, 1150 15th Street, BIW 2144, Augusta, GA 30912-2700, USA. smeiler@mcg.edu
authors.forename: Steffen E
authors.initials: SE
authors.lastname: Meiler
mesh_terms: D000359:Aftercare / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D000758:Anesthesia / Q000009:adverse effects; D002908:Chronic Disease; D018450:Disease Progression; D006801:Humans; D007109:Immunity / Q000276:immunology; D007249:Inflammation / Q000276:immunology; D019990:Perioperative Care / Q000379:methods* / Q000592:standards; D018570:Risk Assessment; D017751:Safety Management; D013514:Surgical Procedures, Operative / Q000009:adverse effects; D013995:Time; D016896:Treatment Outcome