An Audit Of Surgery Related Deaths In An Urban Nigerian Teaching Hospital

Abstract

An audit of surgery related deaths was carried out to determine the most common causes of such death. A total of 338 deaths (205 males and 133 females – 3.3:2) were recorded in the Department of Surgery, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Nigeria over a five-year period (September 1, 1996 to August 31, 2001). Cancer as an entity accounted for the highest number of deaths (104 or 30.8%); the commonest being those of the colorectum, stomach, pancreas and prostate. Other significant causes of surgery related deaths were burn injury (64 or 13.3%) and intestinal obstruction (22 or 9.5%). Complications from head injury singularly accounted for 33 (9. 8%) of deaths, following road traffic accidents. Most of the deaths from intestinal obstruction were post-operative following laparotomy, resection of gangrenous bowel and anastomosis with neonatal intestinal obstruction accounting for 15 (68%) of the deaths. The other less common causes of death as well as those where diagnosis could not be reached due to lack of postmortem were classified as miscellaneous (47 or 19.8%). Provision of facilities for early detection of cancer as well as enforcing the use of seatbelts and crash-helmets will help in reducing the number of deaths from cancer and road traffic accidents respectively. Trainee surgeons should be exposed to the management of burns while timely intervention especially in neonates will help to reduce the mortality associated with intestinal obstruction. Keywords: Audit, Surgery related deaths, Benin City, Nigeria Annals of Biomedical Science Vol. 2 (1) 2003: pp. 47-53