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Invited Critique
November 15, 2010

Is a “Simple Measurement” of Intra-abdominal Fat a Simple Tool for a Surgeon?: Comment on “Simple Measurement of Intra-abdominal Fat for Abdominal Surgery Outcome Prediction”

Author Affiliations

Author Affiliation: Department of Surgery, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas.

Arch Surg. 2010;145(11):1073-1074. doi:10.1001/archsurg.2010.207

Because surgical decision making is key to surgical outcome, surgeons are constantly searching for simple, reliable methods of risk assessment. Morris and colleagues use sophisticated statistical analysis to demonstrate statistically significant relationships between outcomes and IAF. However, one needs to know an individual's probability of an outcome for stratification and to make a decision that avoids poor outcome. The odds ratios (ORs) reported in the article by Morris et al do not directly provide probability.

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