The aging of the population is one of the most widely studied and impactful social phenomena of this century. Up to 25% of all emergency hospital admissions can be due to diseases that require general surgery.
To describe the experience at the Department of Gastrointestinal Surgery of the Hospital Español, Mexico, in patients above 65 years of age.
A retrospective, observational, analytic, and cross-sectional study was conducted that included 595 medical records of geriatric patients that underwent surgical procedures, within the time frame of November 2013 and February 2019.
A total of 52% (309) of the patients were men and 48% (286) were women. Mean patient age was 75.38 years, with a mode of 73 years, and a maximum age of 100 years. Mean hospital stay was 4.5 days. Postoperative complications presented in 12.77% of the patients, 3.02% of which were severe. Reoperation was required in 13 patients (0.02%). The perioperative mortality rate was 2.02%.
The morbidity and mortality rates of the procedures that corresponded to general surgery in our case series were similar to those reported in the literature. A statistically significant number of patients underwent laparoscopic surgery, within the study period.

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