Association Between Normothermia at the End of Surgery and Postoperative Complications Following Orthopedic Surgery

Abstract Background Maintaining perioperative normothermia is recommended by recent guidelines for the prevention of surgical site infections (SSIs). However, the majority of supporting data originates outside the field of orthopaedic surgery. Methods The effect of normothermia was explored using the prospectively collected data of consecutive patients who underwent single-site surgery in 7 tertiary referral hospitals between November 2013 and July 2016. SSIs, urinary tract infections (UTIs), respiratory tract infections (RTIs), cardiac and cerebral events (CCE), and all-cause mortality rates within 30 days after surgery were compared between patients with normothermia (body temperature ≥36°C) and those with hypothermia (