Children, similar to adults, are required to fast before general anesthesia in order to reduce  the volume and acidity of stomach contents. It is thought that NPO regulations reduce the risk of regurgitation and aspiration of gastric contents during surgery. Recent developments have encouraged a shift from the standard 'nil by mouth from midnight' fasting policy to more relaxed regimens. Preope...

Sir,—I refer to the recent review by Phillips, Daborn and Hatch [1]. Between 1991 and 1993 the Department of Anaesthetics in Newcastle examined the problem of preoperative fasting intervals for children presenting for routine surgery. An initial audit revealed that many children were undergoing prolonged fasts before anaesthesia. After reviewing the literature [2], 8 clear fluid fast of 2 h was...

Anesthesiology societies have issued various guidelines on preoperative fasting since 1990, not only to decrease the incidence of lung aspiration and anesthetic morbidity, but also to increase patient comfort prior to anesthesia. Some of these societies have been updating their guidelines, as such that, since 2010, we now have 2 evidence-based preoperative fasting guidelines available. In this ...

Preoperative fasting was introduced to reduce the risk and severity of aspiration pneumonitis. Adequate time (6h) must still be allowed before operation for solid foods to be emptied from the stomach. However, the overwhelming weight of evidence supports the practice of reducing the duration of the preoperative fluid fast for elective paediatric surgical patients [3, 15]. In children allowed fr...

Sir,—I refer to the recent review by Phillips, Daborn and Hatch [1]. Between 1991 and 1993 the Department of Anaesthetics in Newcastle examined the problem of preoperative fasting intervals for children presenting for routine surgery. An initial audit revealed that many children were undergoing prolonged fasts before anaesthesia. After reviewing the literature [2], 8 clear fluid fast of 2 h was...

AIM Preoperative fasting is an established procedure to be practiced for patients before surgery, but optimal preoperative fasting time still remains controversial. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of "shortened preoperative fasting time" on the change in the amount of total body water (TBW) in elective surgical patients. TBW was measured by multi-frequency impedance method. ...

Overnight fasting before elective surgery has been the routine to reduce the risk of pulmonary aspiration. Recently, several international guidelines for preoperative fasting recommend to intake carbohydrate-containing fluids up to 2 to 3 hours before the induction of anesthesia to improve postoperative recovery. Based on the recommendations, we developed a "preoperative carbohydrate diet" prov...