The effectiveness of warming approaches in preventing perioperative hypothermia: Systematic review and meta-analysis

To assess if experimental warming interventions are superior to routine warming interventions in preventing perioperative hypothermia.

Perioperative hypothermia is a critical issue for the complications of surgery. There are various kinds of perioperative warming interventions, including experimental and routine warming interventions.

We performed a systematic literature review and meta-analysis for the randomized clinical trials of experimental warming interventions vs. routine warming interventions in the perioperative period.

A total of 15 studies were included with 983 participants allocated to experimental warming interventions and 939 controls with routine warming interventions, who were receiving a variety of surgeries. The focused outcome was the intraoperative and postoperative body temperature. All included studies were randomized clinical trials. Among the participants receiving operations, the meta-analysis showed that routine warming intervention groups experienced lower intraoperative and postoperative body temperatures compared to the experimental warming groups. The meta-analysis results included positive mean differences, significant tests for overall effect and significant heterogeneity in the random-effects model.

In spite of significant heterogeneity, experimental warming interventions are likely to demonstrate superior warming effects when compared to routine warming interventions, as shown by the current meta-analysis results of randomized clinical trials.