Postoperative disability after non‐cardiac surgery: replies

Postoperative disability after non-cardiac surgery: repliesWe thank the authors [1-3] for their thoughtful comments and interest in the PACORUS study [4].We agree with Zhao and Shen [1] that future studies would benefit from more detailed characterisation of complications, particularly their impact on early nutrition, mobilisation and rehabilitation.Linking physiological complication severity to short-and mid-term functional impairment, ideally domain-specific disability, may help identify clinically meaningful recovery pathways and opportunities for intervention.However, PACORUS addressed the more basic question of whether postoperative complications and, specifically, their severity, are associated with subsequent long-term disability and death.Although our data suggest a `failure to rescue´ regarding disability, the study was designed to provide epidemiological information rather than to address translation into practice, which we therefore did not discuss.*WHODAS 2.0 increase ≥ 5 percentage points to a final score ≥ 35%. †Oslo Social Support Scale-3, 3-8 points.‡