Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41412901›Full record

ArticleBritish journal of anaesthesia2026

The Air-Test score for prediction of postoperative pulmonary complications after general anaesthesia: analysis of harmonised trial data and a prospective observational cohort.

Ramsés Marrero, Jordi Vallverdú, Miguel Linares, Albert Abad, Marina Roger, Marina Vendrell, Miquel Ferrer, Jesús Villar, Gerardo Tusman, Fernando Suárez-Sipmann and 2 more

Abstract read
PubMed Publisher
In one paragraph

Article in British journal of anaesthesia, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

12 authors.

Ramsés MarreroDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain.
Jordi VallverdúDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain. Electronic address: vallverdu@clinic.cat.
Miguel LinaresDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain.
Albert AbadFaculty of Medicine, University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain.
Marina RogerDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain.
Marina VendrellDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain.
Miquel FerrerCIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain; Department of Pneumology, Hospital Clínic, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain.
Jesús VillarCIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain; Research Unit at Hospital Universitario Dr. Negrín, Fundación Canaria Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Canarias, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain; Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, St. Michael's Hospital, Toronto, ON, Canada; Faculty of Health Sciences, Universidad del Atlántico Medio, Tafira Baja, Las Palmas, Spain.
Gerardo TusmanDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Hospital Privado de Comunidad, Mar de Plata, Argentina.
Fernando Suárez-SipmannCIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain; Department of Critical Care, Hospital Universitario La Princesa, Madrid, Spain.
Carlos FerrandoDepartment of Anaesthesiology and Critical Care, Institut d'Investigacions Biomèdiques August Pi i Sunyer, Barcelona, Spain; CIBER de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Instituto de Salud Carlos III, Madrid, Spain.
iPROVE Research Network Group

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

backgroundThe Air-Test score, which measures preoperative and postoperative Spo

methodsThis secondary analysis of a harmonised dataset comprised 3268 patients included in three multicentre RCTs and a prospective observational study of surgical patients undergoing general anaesthesia. The patients were randomly split into training (n=2288, 70%) and validation (n=980, 30%) cohorts. The primary outcome was a composite of severe PPCs developing within the first 7 postoperative days. The exposure of interest was the Air-Test, evaluated by assessment of discriminative performance and area under the curve (AUC) calculation. We also assessed sensitivity, specificity, positive, and negative predictive values.

resultsSevere PPCs within 7 days of surgery were recorded in 164/3268 (5.0%) participants (mean age: 63.5 (49.7-77.3) yr; 39% female). Participants with a positive Air-Test were more likely to have severe PPCs in both training (odds ratio [OR] 1.85, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.21-3.15; P=0.007) and validation (OR 2.27, 95% CI 1.27-4.61; P=0.011) cohorts. The AUCs for detecting PPCs in both cohorts were similar (OR 0.57, 95% CI 0.50-0.64). In each cohort, sensitivity was 53-54%, specificity 59-60%, positive predictive value 6-8%, and negative predictive value 95-96%.

conclusionsThe Air-Test is a simple noninvasive bedside score with a good performance in identifying patients after major surgery who will not develop severe PPCs.

Indexed as

Anesthesia, GeneralLung DiseasesOxygen SaturationPostoperative ComplicationsAgedCohort StudiesFemaleHumansMaleMiddle AgedMulticenter Studies as TopicObservational Studies as TopicPredictive Value of TestsProspective StudiesRandomized Controlled Trials as TopicSecondary Data AnalysisAir-Testmajor surgerypostoperative pulmonary complicationpredictive scorerisk assessment

Identifiers

PMID41412901

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.