Body temperature management during pediatric full mouth rehabilitation surgery under general anesthesia

BACKGROUND/PURPOSE: It was found that body temperature would be gradually increased during pediatric full mouth rehabilitation surgery. Although the etiology is unknown, here, we introduced an effective method to maintain normothermia during this kind of surgery. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Following IRB approval, the medical records of pediatric patients who received full mouth rehabilitation surgery from Jan. 2014 through Jun. 2016 were collected. All the patients included were managed by a “tent-like draping” with a forced-air warmer (Life-Air 1000, Progressive Dynamics Inc.). The temperature of the forced-air was changed from 38 °C to cool ambient temperature when the body temperature higher than 36 °C. The body temperatures (preoperative, periodic during operation, and postoperative) and the maximum body temperature changes during operation were recorded. The data was compared with the results of a previous report. RESULTS: Total 37 patients were enrolled. The maximum temperature change during operation was 2.08 ± 0.6 °C. The incidence of body temperature higher than 37.5 °C during operation was 10.8% (4/37). Compare to the previous report in which the patients received the same operation with ordinary surgical draping, the maximum temperature change and the incidence of body temperature higher than 37.5 °C during operation were significantly lower in patients received “tent-like draping” (2.08 ± 0.64 °C vs 2.50 ± 1.17 °C, p < 0.001; and 10.8% (4/37) vs 32.4% (11/34), p < 0.05, respectively) CONCLUSION: The increase of body temperature during pediatric full mouth rehabilitation surgery can be effectively controlled by ambient forced-air cooling using tent-like draping.