Mascarella MA, et al. - In this cohort study, authors researched over 43,968 operations registered in the American College of Surgeons (ACS) National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (NSQIP) database to generate a preoperative risk index of short-term major postoperative adverse events (AEs) for cases experiencing head and neck cancer surgery. On multiple regression analysis, they noticed an independent association of older age, male sex, smoking, anticoagulation, recent weight loss, functional dependence, free-tissue transfer, tracheotomy, duration of surgery, wound classification, anemia, leukocytosis, and hypoalbuminemia with major AEs or death. Overall, they recorded high sensitivity and specificity for major postoperative AEs and death under the proposed head and neck surgery risk index (HNSRI).