Redistribution of Body Heat during Anaesthesia

The effect of different end‐tidal volatile agent and carbon dioxide concentrations upon the incidence of postoperative shivering

“…The The duration of anaesthesia was statistically highly significant in the development of postoperative shivering, which supports our own earlier data [lo] and that of other workers [2]. It is known that patients lose heat during anaesthesia and that temperature regulation is impaired [5,6,171. It seems likely that more body heat would be lost during an anaesthetic of longer duration; this is an attractive explanation of the observed data.…”

“…It seems likely that more body heat would be lost during an anaesthetic of longer duration; this is an attractive explanation of the observed data. Moreover, it may suggest a reason why men have a greater incidence of postoperative shivering than women: men have a lower percentage of their total body fat [5,6,16,[19][20][21]. It may be that more comprehensive measures of total body heat and heat loss are required, although an earlier study [5] failed to demonstrate an association.…”