The Obesity Paradox in Emergency Abdominal Surgery: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Background: Emergency surgery is associated with high mortality and morbidity and identifying the patients at highest risk of death represents a major challenge for intensivists. Obesity is a common comorbidity with increasing prevalence in the last 20 years. While conflicting results were reported on the association between obesity and mortality in elective surgery, very few data are available on this relationship in emergency surgery.