This review highlights the discrepancy between scientific evidence and routine practice regarding preoperative fasting guidelines across different countries.
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Discrepancies between evidence and national fasting guidelines warrant clinical caution; leaves open whether harmonized updates can close the gap.
Abstention from food and drink prior to anaesthesia remains a cornerstone in safe practice. Despite the lack of scientific support, previous guidelines, similar for fluids and solids, have for more than three decades more often than not recommended "nil by mouth" ("nothing-per-os"; "NPO" in the US) after midnight or a fixed duration of time. Based on an increased number of studies of relevance to the duration of preoperative fasting, reviews on this subject concerning both adults (1) and children (2) and a large number of editorials (3-7), have recently been published. Since there may be a discrepancy between conclusions based on scientific studies and the current routine practice-this presentation is intended to survey the current recommendations in different countries and how they relate to publications on the subject. Opinions are mainly derived from officers of associations linked to The World Federation for Anaesthesiologists (WFSA) and from current literature.
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Eriksson et al. (1996) studied this question.
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