Medications or food before anesthesia to note taking

ABSTRACT

Decisions about stopping or continuing medications perioperatively should be based on withdrawal potential, the potential for disease progression if therapy is interrupted, and the potential for drug interactions with anesthesia. In general, most medications are tolerated well through surgery and do not interfere with anesthetic administration. Therefore, most drugs should be continued through the morning of surgery. However, some medications are known to influence surgical risk or surgical decisions (e.g., antiplatelet agents, anticoagulants, some hormonal therapies, and herbal remedies), so it is important to obtain a complete medication list from the patient and to advise adjusting doses or discontinuing certain potentially complicating medications in advance of surgery. This article reviews general recommendations for perioperative management of a number of common medication classes.