Thermal care in the perioperative period

Perioperative hypothermia is a common and serious complication of anesthesia and surgery. Core body temperature, which is normally regulated to within a few tenths of a degree centigrade, can fall by as much as 6 °C during anesthesia. The combination of anesthetic-induced impairment of thermoregulat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Best practice & research. Clinical anaesthesiology 2008-03, Vol.22 (1), p.39-62
Main Author: Kurz, Andrea, MD
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Anesthesia & Perioperative Care
Anesthesia - adverse effects
anesthesia, general
anesthesis regional
Body Temperature Regulation - physiology
complications
Heart Arrest - etiology
heat
Humans
Hypothermia - classification
Hypothermia - complications
Hypothermia - etiology
Intraoperative Complications - etiology
Intraoperative Complications - prevention & control
Monitoring, Intraoperative - methods
Perioperative Care - methods
shivering
Shivering - physiology
surgery
Surgical Wound Infection - etiology
Surgical Wound Infection - prevention & control
sweating
temperature
thermoregulation
vasoconstriction
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Summary:Perioperative hypothermia is a common and serious complication of anesthesia and surgery. Core body temperature, which is normally regulated to within a few tenths of a degree centigrade, can fall by as much as 6 °C during anesthesia. The combination of anesthetic-induced impairment of thermoregulatory control and exposure to a cool operating room environment causes most surgical patients to become hypothermic. Mild intraoperative hypothermia triples the incidence of postoperative wound infections, triples the incidence of postoperative myocardial events and increases perioperative blood loss. Furthermore, it prolongs postoperative recovery and prolongs the duration of action of almost all anesthestic drugs. Effective methods are available for preventing inadvertent perioperative hypothermia. Consequently, it is now routine to maintain intraoperative normothermia. There is no widely accepted definition for the term ‘mild hypothermia’. Furthermore, the term is not used consistently within the literature. For the purpose of this review, mild hypothermia refers to core temperatures between 34 and 36 °C.
ISSN:1521-6896
1532-169X
DOI:10.1016/j.bpa.2007.10.004