EDITORIAL VIEW – Low sodium; a high risk in perioperative pediatric patients

Abstract

Perioperative fluid therapy is aimed at providing maintenance fluid requirements, at correcting fluid deficit and at providing the volume of fluid needed to maintain adequate tissues perfusion. It gets more important in pediatric population as the little shift in the small total volume of intracellular and extracellular compartments in these patients is multiplied many folds in its effects. Perioperative fluid therapy has been suggested to be a medical prescription adapted to the patient status, the type of operation and the expected events in the postoperative period of which both the volume and the composition matter.