Outcome analyses of operative mortality and autopsy in the elderly, including gastrointestinal death

The epidemiology of survival in the elderly old reveal a significantly different set of organ and system failures from those in the population at large. This finding contrasts with the surgical elderly, and these data serve as an initial guide to expected complications in the elderly. Furthermore, the data can alert pathologists to occult demise in the elderly after surgery and act as our internal standard for assuring appropriate risk in the high- risk population. The very old are more likely to die of nonneoplastic (i.e., infectious) illness than of neoplasia. Gastrointestinal neoplasms are the most common, and pulmonary neoplasms are less common. In particular, the effects of age are seen on one specific organ system: there is an increased incidence of gallstones with advancing age.