Postoperative hypothermia and patient outcomes after major elective non-cardiac surgery

Using a multicentre adult patient database from Australia and New Zealand, we obtained the lowest and highest temperature in the first 24h after admission to the intensive care unit after elective non-cardiac surgery. Hypothermia was defined as core temperature <36 degrees C; transient hypothermia as a temperature <36 degrees C that was corrected within 24h, and persistent hypothermia as hypothermia not corrected within 24h. We studied 50689 patients. Hypothermia occurred in 23165 (46%) patients, was transient in 22810 (45%), and was persistent in 608 (1.2%) patients. On multivariate analysis, neither transient (OR=1.07, 95% CI 0.961.20) nor persistent (OR=1.50. 95% CI 0.962.33) hypothermia was independently associated with increased hospital mortality.