The purpose of this study is to evaluate the main malnutrition risk assessment tools in patients undergoing operations of general surgery.

This is a multi centre prospective observational study including patients undergoing major/major+ operation of general surgery. Patients will be interviewed by surgical trainees and their malnutrition risk will be assessed with the use of SGA, MUST, NRS, MNA-SF etc. Clinical variables and demographics will also be recorded in order to enable meaningful comparisons of malnutrition risk assessment tools in terms of serious postoperative complications.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Age >18 years

• Patients undergoing elective or emergency surgery. Urgency of emergent operations is classified as follows, according to the clinical judgment of the surgeon, regarding the maximum time a patient could wait for surgery:

  • 3.Expedited (>18 hours)
  • 2B. Urgent (6-18 hours)
  • 2A. Urgent (2-6 hours)
  • 1. Immediate (<2 hours)

• Operations involving the gastrointestinal tract

• Magnitude of operation graded by POSSUM [17,18]:

  • Major+ (examples include colonic resection abdominoperineal resection of the rectum, radical total gastrectomy, intestinal bypass, whipple resection)
  • Major (examples include adhesiolysis, stoma formation, small bowel resection, anterior resection, cholecystectomy and exploration of the bile duct)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Age <18 years

• Magnitude of operation graded by POSSUM:

  • Minor
  • Intermediate

• Inability to perform nutritional assessment

• Inability to provide informed consent

This is a prospective observational study including patients admitted in a surgical department during a 1-year study period, from January 2022 until January 2023 (TBReviewed)