American Board of Surgery Qualifying Exam (ABS QE) Practice Test 2025 - Free Surgery Exam Practice Questions and Study Guide.

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Question: 1 / 650

What date is an indicator for assessing nutritional status after surgery?

Albumin levels

Evaluating nutritional status after surgery is crucial for patient recovery and can impact healing and complication rates. Albumin levels serve as a significant indicator in this context because albumin is a protein produced by the liver, and its levels can reflect the patient's nutritional state, particularly over a longer-term period, as it has a half-life of about 20 days. Low albumin levels can indicate malnutrition or a chronic inflammatory state, making it a reliable marker in assessing nutritional status after surgery.

While prealbumin and transferrin levels are also used in nutritional assessments, they serve slightly different purposes. Prealbumin has a shorter half-life (about 2-3 days), making it more responsive to changes in nutritional intake over a shorter duration, which might not provide an accurate reflection of a patient's nutritional status weeks after surgery. Transferrin levels can indicate iron status but are not as commonly used as standalone indicators of overall nutritional status.

Thus, relying on albumin levels provides a foundational assessment of a patient's nutritional status following surgical procedures, which is why it is prominent among the options listed.

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Prealbumin levels

Transferrin levels

All of the above

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