Breath of Warm Air Assists Surgery Patients, Doctors Find

By heating the air breathed by patients during outpatient surgery, doctors have reduced the time necessary for post-operation recovery by nearly a third, a team of Philadelphia researchers reported to the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

“Reducing recovery time means the patients can go home sooner, costs can be reduced and doctors and nurses can use their time more efficiently,” Dr. Thomas J. Conahan III told his colleagues in the society in a paper prepared for delivery today.

A major factor increasing recovery time after surgery is the patients’ sensation of feeling cold, according to the paper from the Pennsylvania School of Medicine research team.

Conahan said that providing heated, humidified gas during anesthesia for outpatient surgical procedures “decreased the loss of body heat and allowed patients to be ready for discharge home almost an hour earlier.”

The study involved 19 patients undergoing the same kind of operation--the removal of eggs for fertilization.

“The average time spent in the recovery room among 10 women receiving heated, humidified air was two hours. . . . Among the nine women receiving room temperature air, the normal way of administering anesthetic gases, the recovery time was three hours,” Conahan said.