Summary of the British Consensus Guidelines on Intravenous Fluid Therapy for Adult Surgical Patients (GIFTASUP) – For Comment

Starting in October 2006 the Association of Surgeons of Great Britain and Ireland, the Society of Academic and Research Surgery, BAPEN Medical, the Intensive Care Society, the Association for Clinical Biochemistry and the Renal Association, nominated core members of a steering committee who came together to establish consensus for good peri-operative fluid prescribing. Concern arose regarding a high incidence of postoperative sodium and water overload, and evidence to suggest that preventing or treating this, by more accurate fluid therapy, would improve outcome. The following recommendations (28 in total) are extracted from the complete document which can be found on the ICS website ( http://www.ics.ac.uk/downloads/2008112340_GIFTASUP%20FINAL_31-10-08.pdf ). Members of the steering committee used the definitions of the Oxford Centre for Evidence-based Medicine Levels of Evidence (May 2001) accessed from http://www.cebm.net/index.aspx?o=1025 to assign levels of evidence, each of which, after debate, was accepted unanimously. However, debate is on-going and you are encouraged to have your say. Please communicate your thoughts on this published summary to the editor of JICS who will seek response from the authors.