Preoperative prediction of postoperative delirium

Abstract

To the Editor. —I wish to thank you for publishing A Clinical Prediction Rule for Delirium After Elective Noncardiac Surgery by Dr Marcantonio and colleagues. 1 No doubt you will receive correspondence criticizing the research for not including an anesthesiologist among the 14 authors of this article. Others may also be critical of the exclusion of any references from the anesthesiology literature in this study in which all of the 1341 patients studied had received anesthesia. However, I personally am grateful for this article. Since I can now identify the appropriate candidates for interventions with [s]trategies [that] include close monitoring and correction of perioperative hypoxemia, hypotension, fluid and electrolyte balance, and severe anemia, I can rest much easier when I turn off the oxygen, ignore the blood pressure, and walk off down the hall to have coffee when patients I anesthetize do not need these interventions.