Riassunto dello studio

123 patients between the age of 18-64 years who were scheduled for orthopedic surgery lasting more than 30 minutes under spinal anesthesia were included in this prospective, parallel study in which patients were randomly allotted to be warmed intraoperatively using either Resistive Warming Mattress (RWM; n=41), Forced-Air Warming System (FAW; n=41) or a combination of the two (RWM+FAW; n=41). The primary outcome of interest was the incidence of intraoperative inadvertent hypothermia (IIH). The additional outcomes observed were the feeling of cold, incidence of cyanosis, incidence of shivering and patient satisfaction which was measured using a visual analog scale (VAS). The combination group showed a lower incidence of IIH, however, this was not statistically significant. While satisfaction was significantly higher in the combination group, a higher incidence of patients feeling cold and shivering was observed in the combination group.