Reduce potential for heart attack in surgery patients
August 1, 1997
Reduce potential for heart attack in surgery patients
Adjusting the thermostat may be the answer
Patients are usually kept in cool conditions during and after surgery, but new findings show that may not be the way to go. If patients with cardiac disease or risk factors have to undergo noncardiac surgery, they’ll have a 55% lower risk of experiencing a cardiac event if the surgical team maintains the normal body temperature in the perioperative period. Keeping body temperature steady, says a new study, leads to fewer cardiac events.
Relating body temp with cardiac morbidity
Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, wanted to assess the relationship between body temperature and cardiac morbidity. They looked at a set of elderly patients with coronary artery disease who were having thoracic, abdominal, and vascular surgery. Some, the hypothermic group, were given only routine cotton blankets, and others, the normothermic group, were given supplemental warming with forced-air warming covers during and after surgery, causing a 1.3 degrees Celsius rise in temperature.1 Cardiac events occurred less frequently in the normothermic group.
Although active warming has been shown to attenuate the adrenergic response, reduce the incidence of shivering, and increase comfort, these findings suggest additional benefit: prevention of postoperative cardiac complications.