In other words, many surgical patients have an unconscious gut reaction to what is happening in their intestines, and their evolved response is nausea and vomiting to rid the stomach of the source of the problem. The research is part of on-going studies by an international science team, the Outcomes Research Group TM, examining accepted practice in anesthesiology to determine if simple improvements can produce major benefits. General anesthesia was known to lower a patient's temperature by about two degrees Fahrenheit, but no one had examined the down-side of the body's natural reaction to general anesthesia. Simply warming patients can maintain normal temperature, Sessler noted, and this has now become standard practice during general anesthesia. This summer, the research group reported finding that patients with poorly controlled post-surgical pain had higher risk of infection than did those whose pain was better controlled, perhaps because pain reduces the oxygen supply available to tissues, which in turn can limit the body's ability to fight infection.
Studies continue on other links between anesthesia conditions and patients' outcomes.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Joseph Drown Foundation, and several Austrian grants. All Rights Reserved. Last updated . Please direct comments and questions to our web developer.