Intraoperative hypothermia in colectomy patients not associated with increased risk for SSI

A sustained period of intraoperative hypothermia in patients who underwent segmental colectomy was not associated with an increased risk for developing a surgical site infection compared with patients in whom perioperative normothermia was maintained, according to recent study data.“It is well known that severe hypothermia negatively impacts multiple physiologic processes, but the real focus on perioperative normothermia began in the late 1990s after hypothermia was linked to surgical site infections [SSIs],” Rebeccah B. Baucom, MD, division of general surgery, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, told Healio Gastroenterology. “There are costs associated with keeping patients normothermic, including disposable warming gowns, special infusers, etc., and the true impact of normothermia on SSI reduction is unclear. We aimed to determine whether failure to attain the current quality metric was associated with SSI, and to explore potentially more robust definitions of hypothermia.”