Download – Perioperative Steroids

It has been about 50 years since the first case reports of perioperative shock due to secondary corticosteroid insufficiency. Since then it has been recommended that patients have adequate steroid replacement therapy to avoid perioperative haemodynamic instability. However there is a continuing debate over the amount of steroid that should be given. Some feel that only physiological amounts of steroids are necessary while others give much larger doses.

M Loh, M Atherton