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threshold where one would say that patients will be fine at 36.2ºC and
in big trouble at 35.8ºC.
Moreover, the length of time spent at a given temperature may be
just as important as the temperature itself. A patient who maintains a
core temperature near 35.5ºC for hours is probably going to be worse
off than one who briefly drops to 35ºC. How much worse, though,
remains to be established. But that said, warmer is almost surely safer
than cooler throughout surgery. OSM
Dr. Sessler (
ds@or.org
) is the Michael Cudahy Professor and chair of the
Department of Outcomes Research at the Cleveland Clinic. He has published
more than 550 full research articles and is widely regarded as the world's
leading authority on peri-operative thermoregulation.
P A T I E N T W A R M I N G
Patients warmed with forced air are usually normothermic at the
end of surgery — but may be quite hypothermic during surgery.
Pamela
Bevelhymer,
RN,
BSN
