Intravenous fluid therapy in adults and children

Abstract

Evidence behind rational fluid therapy for sick paediatric and adult patients is sparse. During the last two decades, fluid therapy has become increasingly regulated. The neverending debate about crystalloids versus colloids is continuing and the scientific community still waits the discovery of the ideal intravenous solution. This review focus on analyzing the current evidence behind various practices of fluid management in children and adults. A web based search was carried out using the pubmed. The following key words were used; “Fluid therapy”, “peri-operative fluids”, “tissue oxygenation”, “Intravenous fluids”, “tissue perfusion”. Studies more than 10 years old were excluded. Systemic reviews, randomized trials, meta analyses and novel ideas about fluid resuscitation were filtered out to obtain the best evidence. “Up to date” 2016 was used to formulate factual back ground information.