Editorial

Can we accurately assess an individual’s perioperative risk? Assessing the risk an individual patient presents in the perioperative period is a daily task for anaesthetists and surgeons. A considerable research effort has been directed at this problem over many years with the aim of identify-ing the ‘at risk ’ patient at an early stage. The purpose of this is to allow time to improve any elements of the patient’s condition that are amenable to treatment (opti-mization)1 and, of equal importance, it allows informed decisions to be made on the best course of treatment and techniques to be used in the patient’s management. Are we now in a position where we can accurately determine an individual patient’s level of risk? Much of the early work on perioperative risk, during the 1970s and 1980s, was directed at reducing the incidence o