Pre-operative chest X-rays: Are we doing too many for too much?

Objective: to study whether preoperative chest x-rays are sometimes unnecessarily done in patients admitted to surgical wards. material and methods: this observational study was conducted in a surgical ward of khyber teaching hospital,peshawar,pakistan from 22 february 2010 to 22 march 2010. all those patients who were admitted to a single surgical ward and had their chest x-ray done preoperatively were included in the study. results: the total number of patients included in the study was 89. of them,28 (31.36%) had a positive history of cardiopulmonary problems. only 5 patients were examined before the x-ray was done. out of these 5 patients,3(60%) had positive findings on chest examination. seventy nine (88.76%) x-rays were advised by house surgeons. the anesthaetist had a look at the chest x-ray in only 9(10%) cases. the total expenditure of the hospital was rs. 4445.55 for all the 89 cases that were included in our study. conclusion: strict adherence to guidelines of pre-operative chest x-rays can decrease the burden on the hospital in terms of finances and work load.