COMPARISON OF INTRAOPERATIVE TEMPERATURE MONITORING BY ZHF DEVICE AND NASOPHARYNGEAL TECHNIQUES IN PEDIATRIC PATIENTS: A PROSPECTIVE , OBSERVATIONAL STUDY

General anaesthesia can impair the thermoregulatory process and contribute to perioperative hypothermia. Intraoperative monitoring of core body temperature is thus recommended during general or neuraxial regional anaesthesia lasting >30 min .Perioperative temperature monitoring has prime importance in pediatric patients- a population particularly vulnerable to thermal variations as they loss a significant percentage of their core heat through conduction and radiation. Perioperatively these thermal variations are aggravated due to increased exposure of body surfaces and impaired physiologic compensatory mechanisms. Hence , adequate measurement of body core temperature is a prerequisite. Nasopharyngeal measurement has been shown to be a reliable method for core temperature monitoring, but it is not suitable in awake or head-injured patients.As an alternative the non-invasive ZHF sensor(3M SpotOn) , to be placed on forehead is composed of an isolating material that minimizes the heat loss from skin surface and a servo controlled heater able to reach skin temperature favoring the formation of an isothermal tunnel between the sensor and deep forehead. And as the temperatures equalize ,heat flow falls to zero and core temperature is measured.The present study aims to compare the ZHF sensor with the Nasopharyngeal probe with respect to their correlation, accuracy and precision in paediatric population undergoing surgery under General Anaesthesia.