
Morbid obesity is a metabolic disorder with a patient’s body mass index over 35 kg/m2. In morbidly obese patients, when compared with healthy individuals, a 20%-50% decrease in tidal volume and a 40% increase in respiratory rate have been observed. In addition, such patients frequently exhibit several comorbidities such as type II diabetes mellitus, obesity-induced hypertension, obstructive sleep apnea, cardiac disease, etc. The anesthesia management of obese patients needs to consider obesity conditions and obesity-induced co-morbidities. It represents a real challenge for the anesthesiologist in several aspects, such as ventilation and intubation, vascular access, patients’ intraoperative positioning, and drug dose regimens.
To recognize the anesthesiologists’ efforts to improve the management of obese patients in recent years, we have decided to launch a BMC Anesthesiology collection, “Obesity and anesthesia management.”
We invite submissions from all aspects of this developing field including, but not limited to:
- non-opioid pain management for obese patients
- perioperative airway management and deventilation syndrome in morbidly obese patients
- vascular access
- drug dose regiments
- preoperative evaluation and anesthesia care plan
- sleep and the obese patient
- delirium and the obese patient