Abstract
Prevention of intraoperative hypothermia (<36 °C) is a standard of care for all patients undergoing surgery. Patients undergoing both general and regional anesthesia are at risk of hypothermia, which, if it occurs, has well-recognized consequences, including increases in surgical site infections, surgical blood loss and transfusion requirements, cardiac complications, reduced drug metabolism, and prolonged recovery. Two key areas in its prevention are regular accurate core body temperature measurement and the required steps that may be undertaken to prevent further loss and/or allow patient warming, aiming for a target core temperature of at least 36.5 °C. Great care must be taken to ensure that any devices are appropriately serviced, assembled, and used, to minimize accidental thermal injury to patients. Preoperatively, anesthesia should not begin if the patient’s temperature is <36 °C, and they should be actively warmed if from the start of the procedure the duration of anesthesia is expected to be >30 minutes. In the postoperative period, the patient’s temperature should be monitored and actively warmed if their temperature is <36 °C.
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Fawcett, W.J. (2020). Prevention of Intraoperative Hypothermia. In: Ljungqvist, O., Francis, N., Urman, R. (eds) Enhanced Recovery After Surgery. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33443-7_17
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-33443-7_17
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