People should not have surgery in the evenings, new research suggests.
The risk of suffering complications increases by more than 50 percent for operations starting between 9pm and 7am, a study found.
Such complications are also significantly more likely to be severe if the surgery taking place during this time frame is an emergency, as opposed to being scheduled in advance, the research adds.
This builds on previous research that reveals procedures performed outside of ‘expected’ hours, such as operations that occur on weekends, are more likely to have errors.
Lead author Dr Aditya Pandey from the University of Michigan, said: ‘Could it mean that health systems need to invest more with respect to increasing the number of surgical teams and operating rooms to allow for greater proportion of surgeries to be performed during day hours and that urgent cases should be stabilized and performed during day hours?’
