Introduction:

Perioperative mortality rate represents a global indicator for safe access to surgical and anesthesiological care.

Objective:

To characterize patients who deceased during the perioperative period in surgical interventions.

Methods:

A cross-sectional and descriptive study was carried out in the anesthesiology service of Arnaldo Milián Castro Clinical-Surgical Hospital, in Villa Clara Province, in the period from January 2015 to December 2018. The study population consisted of patients who received surgery within that hospital (N: 133 724). The sample consisted of patients who died during the intraoperative period and within the first 24 hours after surgery (n: 77).

Results:

The general perioperative mortality rate was 5.76/10 000. There was incidence of higher mortality among men (59.7%), elderlies (75.3%), patients with several associated comorbidities (51.9%), those classified as ASA-IV (41.5%), those belonging to group II for surgical risk (62.3%), cases of abdominal surgery (63.6%), emergency interventions (88.3%), patients under general anesthetic technique (84.4 %), and at 24 hours after the postoperative period (68.8%). Septic shock was the main cause of mortality (48.1%).

Conclusions:

There was a predominance of deaths among elderlies with associated comorbidities, high anesthetic, as well as surgical risk, who received emergency surgery under general anesthesia, being septic shock the main cause of death. The perioperative mortality rate was similar to that in nations of equivalent socioeconomic development.

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