AzTrials
AzTrials

Abdominal SurgeryPPOSSUM-ABDNCT07667764

P-POSSUM for Outcomes After Abdominal Surgery

An observational study of Abdominal Surgery and Postoperative Complications, run by Bach Mai Hospital at 1 site in Vietnam.

Active, not recruiting

Under way, not looking for participants. Everyone needed has enrolled. The study is still running.

Official record
Search all trials

Trial summary

Postoperative complications after abdominal surgery can lead to prolonged recovery, intensive care admission, and death. The P-POSSUM score is a commonly used surgical risk prediction tool, but its performance may vary between hospitals and patient populations. Read more about this study

Who is it for?
Ages 60 years and older
How many people
3,000 participants
Where
1 siteVietnam
Study dates
1 Jan 2026to 30 Jun 2026
Phase
Observational
Are there results?
Not yet: the study is under way

Key requirements

Who can take part, as listed by the sponsor. Only the study team can confirm whether you are eligible, so take this list to your doctor.

  • Ages 60 years and older
  • All sexes
  • No healthy volunteers
  • Adult, Older adult

Study population: Older adult patients aged 60 years or older undergoing abdominal surgery at Bach Mai Hospital. The study population includes patients identified from retrospective hospital records from January 2025 and prospectively collected data through May 2026. P-POSSUM variables, frailty-related variables, routine perioperative clinical data, postoperative complications, and treatment outcomes will be collected for prognostic evaluation.

Who may be able to join

  • Patients aged 60 years or older. Patients undergoing abdominal surgery at Bach Mai Hospital. Patients managed perioperatively or postoperatively by the Center for Anesthesia and Surgical Intensive Care.
  • Patients with available perioperative clinical data required to calculate the P-POSSUM score.
  • Patients with available baseline clinical, comorbidity, or functional status information for frailty assessment.
  • Patients with available postoperative outcome data for assessment of complications, mortality, or treatment outcomes.

Who cannot join

  • Patients younger than 60 years. Patients not undergoing abdominal surgery. Patients undergoing minor procedures without operative severity data required for P-POSSUM calculation.
  • Patients with missing key physiological or operative variables required to calculate the P-POSSUM score.
  • Patients with insufficient baseline information for frailty assessment. Patients with insufficient postoperative follow-up data for outcome assessment.

Trial locations and contacts

1 site in 1 country.

Vietnam1 site
  • Bach Mai Hospital, Hanoi, Viet Nam.

    Hanoi, Hanoi, 00000

Other trials in Vietnam

About this study

Postoperative complications after abdominal surgery can lead to prolonged recovery, intensive care admission, and death. The P-POSSUM score is a commonly used surgical risk prediction tool, but its performance may vary between hospitals and patient populations. Frailty, especially in older patients, may also affect postoperative outcomes and may improve risk prediction when added to existing scoring systems.

This ambispective observational cohort study evaluates the prognostic value of the P-POSSUM score, with additional assessment of frailty and routine perioperative clinical data, for predicting postoperative complications and treatment outcomes in adult patients undergoing abdominal surgery at Bach Mai Hospital. The study includes retrospective data from January 2025 and prospective data collection through May 2026. No intervention is assigned by the investigators. All patients receive routine perioperative care according to clinical practice.

The study will assess the predictive performance of P-POSSUM for postoperative complications and mortality, and will explore whether adding frailty-related variables improves risk prediction.

Read the detailed description

Postoperative complications remain an important cause of morbidity, prolonged hospital stay, intensive care use, and mortality after abdominal surgery. Risk prediction before and after surgery may help clinicians identify high-risk patients, guide perioperative planning, and improve postoperative monitoring. The Portsmouth Physiological and Operative Severity Score for the Enumeration of Mortality and Morbidity, known as P-POSSUM, combines physiological and operative variables to estimate the risk of postoperative morbidity and mortality. However, the performance of P-POSSUM may differ across populations, surgical settings, and healthcare systems.

Frailty is increasingly recognized as an important predictor of adverse postoperative outcomes, particularly in older surgical patients. Frailty reflects reduced physiological reserve and increased vulnerability to acute stressors such as emergency surgery, infection, bleeding, and postoperative critical illness. In this study, frailty will be assessed using routinely available clinical information. For retrospective data, frailty-related status will be evaluated using available medical records and a modified frailty index when sufficient data are available. For prospectively enrolled patients, frailty will be assessed based on baseline functional status before the acute surgical illness, using a standardized clinical frailty assessment when feasible.

This study is designed as an ambispective observational cohort study conducted at the Center for Anesthesia and Surgical Intensive Care, Bach Mai Hospital, Vietnam. The study includes retrospective data from patients undergoing abdominal surgery from January 2025 and prospective data collection through May 2026. Eligible adult patients undergoing abdominal surgery will be included according to predefined selection criteria. The investigators will not assign any intervention or modify treatment decisions. Perioperative management, surgical care, anesthesia, postoperative monitoring, and intensive care treatment will be provided according to routine clinical practice.

For each eligible patient, demographic characteristics, comorbidities, physiological variables, operative severity variables, frailty-related variables, perioperative laboratory results, anesthesia and surgical information, postoperative complications, and treatment outcomes will be collected. The P-POSSUM score will be calculated using the predefined physiological and operative scoring components. Study outcomes will be obtained from hospital medical records, anesthesia records, surgical records, intensive care charts, laboratory data, and discharge documentation.

The primary objective is to evaluate the prognostic performance of P-POSSUM for postoperative complications after abdominal surgery. Secondary objectives include evaluating the performance of P-POSSUM for postoperative mortality and other treatment outcomes, assessing calibration and discrimination of the score, and exploring whether the addition of frailty-related variables and routinely available perioperative data improves risk prediction compared with P-POSSUM alone.

Keywords
P-POSSUM, Modified Frailty Index, Abdominal surgery, Clinical Frailty Scale, Prognostic score, Perioperative risk assessment
Medical subject headings
Postoperative Complications, Frailty

What participants receive

What participants receive. In a randomised study each person is assigned to one group by chance.

Study groups in NCT07667764
Study groupRoleWhat they receive
Abdominal Surgery CohortAdult patients undergoing abdominal surgery at Bach Mai Hospital who meet the study eligibility criteria. Participants will be identified from retrospective records from January 2025 and prospectively collected data through May 2026. No intervention will be assigned by the investigators. P-POSSUM physiological and operative variables, frailty-related variables, routine perioperative clinical data, postoperative complications, and treatment outcomes will be collected to evaluate prognostic performance and risk prediction.

What is being measured

The primary outcome is the main question the study is designed to answer.

  1. Proportion of patients with postoperative complications within 30 days after abdominal surgery

    The proportion of patients who develop one or more postoperative complications after abdominal surgery. Postoperative complications include surgical, infectious, respiratory, cardiovascular, renal, neurological, bleeding-related, or other clinically documented complications requiring treatment, monitoring, ICU care, reoperation, or other medical intervention. Complications will be identified from anesthesia records, surgical records, ICU charts, laboratory and imaging results, discharge summaries, and hospital medical records. This outcome will be used to evaluate the prognostic performance of P-POSSUM and frailty-enhanced risk prediction.

    Measured: Within 30 days after surgery or until hospital discharge, whichever occurs first

Secondary outcomes (5)
  1. All-cause mortality within 30 days after abdominal surgery

    All-cause mortality after abdominal surgery will be recorded from hospital medical records, ICU records, discharge documentation, and follow-up information when available. This outcome will be used to assess the prognostic performance of P-POSSUM and frailty-related variables for postoperative mortality.

    Measured: Within 30 days after surgery or until hospital discharge, whichever occurs first

  2. Discrimination of P-POSSUM for postoperative complications

    The discrimination of the P-POSSUM score for postoperative complications will be assessed using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve will be reported as a single unitless measure, calculated for postoperative complications occurring within 30 days after surgery or before hospital discharge, whichever occurs first.

    Measured: Postoperative complications occurring from the end of surgery through 30 days after surgery or hospital discharge, whichever occurs first.

  3. Incremental discrimination of frailty-related variables added to P-POSSUM

    The incremental predictive value of frailty-related variables added to the P-POSSUM score will be assessed by the change in area under the receiver operating characteristic curve between the model including P-POSSUM alone and the model including P-POSSUM plus frailty-related variables. The change in area under the receiver operating characteristic curve will be reported as a single unitless measure.

    Measured: Postoperative complications occurring from the end of surgery through 30 days after surgery or hospital discharge, whichever occurs first.

  4. Intensive care unit length of stay

    Intensive care unit length of stay will be reported as a single continuous measure in days. It will be calculated from the recorded date and time of ICU admission to the recorded date and time of ICU discharge or death, whichever occurs first, using ICU charts and hospital medical records.

    Measured: From ICU admission until ICU discharge or death, assessed up to 30 days after ICU admission.

  5. Hospital length of stay

    Hospital length of stay will be reported as a single continuous measure in days. It will be calculated from the date of hospital admission to the date of hospital discharge or in-hospital death, whichever occurs first, using hospital administrative records and discharge documentation.

    Measured: From hospital admission until hospital discharge or in-hospital death, assessed up to 90 days after hospital admission.

Timeline

From the start of the study to its completion; the mark is today. Estimated dates are the sponsor’s plan.

  1. First posted25 Jun 2026
  2. Study start1 Jan 2026
  3. Primary completion30 Jun 2026 (estimated)
  4. Study completion30 Jun 2026 (estimated)

Resources

More details

For doctors and researchers: how the study is designed, who runs it, and its registry IDs.

Study design
Study type
Observational
Observational model
Cohort
Time perspective
Other
Enrolment
3,000 participants (estimated)
IDs, dates and publications
ClinicalTrials.gov ID
NCT07667764
Sponsor's protocol ID
BM_2026_161
Acronym
PPOSSUM-ABD
Status last verified
Jun 2026
First submitted
16 Jun 2026
Last updated
25 Jun 2026
Results posted
No
Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
Individual data sharing
Yes: De-identified individual participant data underlying the main published results may be shared upon reasonable request. Shared data may include baseline demographic and clinical characteristics, P-POSSUM physiological and operative variables, frailty-related variables, routine perioperative data, postoperative complications, mortality, length of stay, and other treatment outcomes used in the final analysis. No directly identifiable participant information will be shared.

Questions about this trial

What is this clinical trial studying?

An observational study of Abdominal Surgery and Postoperative Complications, run by Bach Mai Hospital at 1 site in Vietnam.

The full registered description is in the About this study section and the official record.

Who may be eligible to take part?

The sponsor lists 4 inclusion and 3 exclusion criteria. Eligibility is decided by the study team after screening, so read the full criteria and contact a listed site.

Is this clinical trial currently recruiting?

The record says: under way, not looking for participants, as of the sponsor's last update on 25 Jun 2026. Status can change between updates, so confirm with the study contact before making plans.

Where is the study taking place?

The record lists 1 site in Vietnam. Whether a site is taking part right now should be confirmed with that site. See every site.

What are the possible benefits and risks?

They depend on the study and the treatment, and no study can promise a benefit. The study team explains the known risks during informed consent, before anyone joins; the record itself does not list them.

Are results available for this study?

This study is still under way. Results are not available in the source record yet.

How can a doctor refer a patient or contact the research team?

The record lists no contact. The official record names the sponsor, who can be asked directly. AzTrials does not enrol participants or take referrals.

What does the primary outcome measure?

Proportion of patients with postoperative complications within 30 days after abdominal surgery (time frame: Within 30 days after surgery or until hospital discharge, whichever occurs first). It is what the study was designed to measure, not a finding.

Where can I read the original study information?
Does a listing mean the treatment is approved or proven to work?

No. A listing means the study is registered. It does not show that the treatment is safe, works, or is approved by a regulator.

How often is this information updated?

AzTrials copies changed records from ClinicalTrials.gov every night and reloads the whole registry every week. The sponsor last updated this record on 25 Jun 2026; AzTrials last refreshed its copy on 26 Oct 2026.

Free account

Keep searching with a free account

You’ve used your 3 free searches for this session. Log in or create a free AzTrials account to keep searching clinical trials and save the ones you want to follow.

Create a free accountLog in