Body temperature regulation and anesthesia

Abstract

General anesthesia is the induction and maintenance of a state of unconsciousness with the absence of pain sensation. General anesthesia is accomplished by the administration of a combination of inhaled anesthetic gases and intravenous drugs. These medications eliminate behavioral thermoregulatory compensations, leaving only autonomic defenses to offset environmental perturbations. Anesthetics inhibit thermoregulatory control in a dose-dependent fashion over the entire clinical range. Impairment of thermoregulatory control is observed by a change in thermoregulatory thresholds with the vasoconstriction threshold being affected about three times as much as the sweating threshold. Consequently, the zone between sweating and vasoconstriction thresholds, called interthreshold range, is widened dose-dependently. Impairment of thermoregulation, triggered by general anesthesia, typically causes inadvertent hypothermia. In febrile patients, general anesthesia reduces the magnitude of perioperative fever.

Keywords: anesthetics; general anesthesia; inadvertent hypothermia; interthreshold range; neuraxial anesthesia; perioperative fever; shivering threshold; sweating threshold; vasoconstriction threshold.