Purpose: Analysis of the relevance of preoperative evaluation to prevent adverse clinical events, pre- and postoperative, on cataract surgery.
Methods: The study includes 1254 patients submitted to cataract surgery at the Instituto da Catarata do Departamento de Oftalmologia da UNIFESP - EPM, in the period of Jan - Dec 2004. Data referring to the preoperative evaluation and adverse clinical events related to anesthesia/surgical procedure were retrospectively collected.
Results: Sixteen patients (1.2%) showed an adverse clinical event. Nine hundred thirty-six patients (74.6%) showed at least one altered examination. This factor, nevertheless, did not show any relation to the adverse clinical event (p=0.334).
Conclusion: Concerning the studied series, the altered laboratory tests, electrocardiogram and/or thorax x-ray has no correlation with the adverse clinical events related to the anesthesia/surgical procedure.