Temperature Monitoring and Perioperative Thermoregulation

Most clinically available thermometers accurately report the temperature of whatever tissue is being measured. The difficulty is that no reliably core-temperature-measuring sites are completely noninvasive and easy to use-especially in patients not undergoing general anesthesia. Nonetheless, temperature can be reliably measured in most patients. Body temperature should be measured in patients undergoing general anesthesia exceeding 30 min in duration and in patients undergoing major operations during neuraxial anesthesia. Core body temperature is normally tightly regulated. All general anesthetics produce a profound dose-dependent reduction in the core temperature, triggering cold defenses, including…

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  National Institutes of Health