Evaluation of P-POSSUM scoring system in predicting mortality in patients with hip joint arthroplasty

To evaluate the applicability of Porthsmouth modified physiological and operative severity score for the enumeration of mortality and morbidity (P-POSSUM) in predicting the mortality of the patients undergoing hip joint arthroplasty.A total of 141 patients (75 males and 66 females, aged 63.22 years+/-14.45 years on an average) undergoing hip joint arthroplasty during January 2002 and March 2005 were studied retrospectively with P-POSSUM. Their average physiological score and operative severity score were 17.48+/-5.16 and 12.43+/-3.05, respectively. The predicted postoperative mortality with P-POSSUM was compared with the observed value. Subgroup analysis was performed to investigate the predictive capability of P-POSSUM. POSSUM scoring system was used as the control.Three patients died after operation in this study actually. The average physiological scores were 32.33+/-9.87 in the death group and 17.16+/-4.56 in the survival group. The former was obviously higher than the latter, which showed statistical difference between the two groups (Wilcoxon rank sum test, P0.05). Perfect agreement was found between the observed death number and the predicted death number calculated by P-POSSUM (Cochran-Mantel-Haenszel chi(2) test, P0.05), though POSSUM overestimated the overall mortality.P-POSSUM can predict the mortality accurately in the patients undergoing hip joint arthroplasty, which is superior to POSSUM.