Back

Are the Charlson and Elixhauser Comorbidity Indices Reliable Predictors of Postoperative Delirium in Abdominal Surgery?

Chorney, W.; Lisi, M.

2026-02-17 surgery
10.64898/2026.02.15.26346355 medRxiv
Show abstract

BackgroundPostoperative delirium (POD) is a common complication of surgery. It is associated with a number of detrimental effects, including mortality and healthcare costs. We sought to determine whether common comorbidity indices are predictors of POD. MethodsUsing the Medical Information Mart for Intensive Care (MIMIC)-IV database, we identified 8022 abdominal surgery procedures across 7212 adult patients. We calculated both the Charlson comorbidity index (CCI) and the Elixhauser comorbidity index (ECI) for each procedure and used logistic regression to predict postoperative delirium, which was defined as delirium within 30 days following the procedure. ResultsModels based on either the CCI and ECI were predictive of postoperative delirium (area under the receiver-operator characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) of 0.622 and 0.652, respectively). However, the addition of other factors known to be associated with delirium improved model performance (AUC-ROC of 0.680). ConclusionsBoth the CCI and ECI are predictors of postoperative delirium in patients undergoing abdominal surgery. Addition of factors known to be associated with delirium renders additional predictive value and should be included in models that predict postoperative delirium.

Published in Surgery in Practice and Science · not in our set (fewer than 10 published preprints to learn from) · training set

Matching journals

The top 3 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.