Perioperative hyperglycaemia and glucose variability during major abdominal surgery

There is a considerable proportion of surgical patients that will develop
hyperglycaemia during hospital admission, which will resolve spontaneously
after hospital discharge, also called stress hyperglycaemia. When considering
intra-operative hyperglycaemia, evidence is mounting that perioperative
hyperglycaemia is related to postoperative complications after major surgery.
Recently, it has been shown that glucose variability in combination with
hyperglycaemia further contributes to this risk, which was in line with a
previous study in the ICU, where increased glucose variability was associated
with ICU mortality.
Currently, there are no trials that have evaluated the application and efficacy
of perioperative glucose control in a non-ICU setting to target hyperglycaemia
or glucose variability.
Randomized controlled trials are needed in this area, but first we have to
identify which patient groups are at risk for perioperative hyperglycemia and
glucose variability, as we know that not all patient groups show the
association between hyperglycaemia and postoperative complications

In this study we want to investigate whether hyperglycaemia and blood glucose
variability independently predicts postoperative complications in patients
undergoing major abdominal surgery.

This is a single center prospective observational cohort study.

There are no risks associated with this study. A potential benefit may be the
detection of undiagnosed diabetes mellitus. In general, after completion of
this study the importance of hyperglycaemia and glucose variability during
major abdominal surgery is investigated. This is a final and necessary step
before a randomized controlled intervention trial treating intraoperative
hyperglycaemia is considered.