Assessment of the Association Between Lung POCUS Findings During Preoperative Assessment and Cardiopulmonary Outcomes in Patients Undergoing Major Abdominal Surgery: A Pilot Study Protocol.

Abdominal surgeries make up a significant portion of all surgical procedures performed worldwide. Despite advances in surgical techniques, there is significant morbidity and mortality associated with abdominal surgeries. Cardiopulmonary complications in the postoperative period play an important part in the elevated risk associated with these surgeries. Preoperative medical assessments have therefore become the standard of care to evaluate the risk of surgery, optimize a patient's medical conditions, and mitigate the perioperative risk. While there has been increasing utilization of lung point of care ultrasound (POCUS) in the immediate preoperative setting, the use of lung POCUS at the preoperative medical assessment clinic visit has not been studied. While using risk stratification tools is common in current practice, the role of adjunctive office-based techniques like lung POCUS have not been studied in this setting. We conducted an observational prospective pilot study to evaluate the association of lung POCUS findings in the preoperative visit on the risk of adverse cardiopulmonary outcomes in the 30-day postoperative period after major abdominal surgery. A standardized scoring system called integrated lung ultrasound score (iLUS) is used for objective assessment. Our study attempted to determine whether the addition of lung POCUS can be used to better stratify the risk for postoperative complications.