Published 24 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2418
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2418

Editorials

Intravenous fluids in adults undergoing surgery

High quality research is needed before guidelines can be reliable and useful

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The publication of British consensus guidelines on intravenous fluid therapy for adult surgical patients is a welcome and overdue recognition of the importance of this treatment.¹ This recognition is timely, because emerging evidence indicates that the choice of fluid and resuscitation protocol may materially affect patients’ outcomes.^{2 3 4}

Clinical practice guidelines that are well conceived, researched, and written help clinicians provide the best evidence based care. They also help policy makers, clinicians, and patients by providing a benchmark for appropriate practice, and researchers and research funding agencies by identifying gaps in evidence where research is needed. To achieve these goals, guidelines must meet certain quality standards—their scope and purpose should be clearly articulated, they should be based on systematic review of all the relevant primary literature, the search strategies used should be provided for critique, and the criteria by which studies are included or excluded and by which the quality of . . . [Full text of this article]

¹ George Institute for International Health, University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia

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Relevant Article

What is "quality of evidence" and why is it important to clinicians?

Gordon H Guyatt, Andrew D Oxman, Regina Kunz, Gunn E Vist, Yngve Falck-Ytter, Holger J Schünemann for the GRADE Working Group
BMJ 2008 336: 995-998. [Extract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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• Powell-Tuck, J., Gosling, P., Lobo, D. N, Carlson, G. L, Allison, S. P, Gore, M., Lewington, A. J, Pearse, R. L, Mythen, M. G (2009). Authors of guideline respond. BMJ 339: b3030-b3030 [Full text]  

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