The Royal College of Anaesthesia held its flagship event, Anaesthesia 2018 at The British Museum on May 22nd and 23rd. Comprising two days of talks, breakout sessions and debates, it also featured the presentation of the RELIEF study, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine. “Restrictive versus liberal fluid therapy in major abdominal surgery (RELIEF)” was a 3000 patient pragmatic study across 46 hospitals in 7 countries. TopMedTalk, purveyor of the latest medical news, interviewed principal author Professor Paul Myles about the study and its implications.
Prof Myles pointed to the consistent, coherent recurring theme of increased Surgical Site Infection (SSI) and Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) in the fluid-restricted group compared with liberal fluids group. He said researchers “could not find any positive feature whatsoever in the restrictive/zero fluid balance group.” When asked about Enhanced Recovery after Surgery (ERAS) principles (which talk of restrictive fluid regimes) Prof Myles stated “I think ERAS and ERAS principles remain incredibly important, but that one item of giving a more restrictive i/v fluid approach, I think needs to be changed.”
