Intensive care medicine

Guideline

Perioperative

Economics

Computer science

Anesthesia

Excellence

Management

Political science

Audit

Nice

Medicine

Programming language

Hypothermia

Core temperature

Pathology

BJA Education

Inadvertent perioperative hypothermia (IPH) is defined as a core body temperature <36.0°C. It is a common consequence of anaesthesia, which increases morbidity and potentially increases mortality. IPH has been the subject of the recently updated National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Guideline 65 which summarises best practice for the prevention and treatment of hypothermia in adults undergoing surgery.1 In this article, we describe the physiology of temperature homeostasis and the biophysical causes of IPH; we discuss thermometry and the recommended devices used to measure a patient's temperature and provide a summary of the NICE guidelines and the supporting evidence.

Inadvertent perioperative hypothermia