IMPORTANCE OF PRE-ANAESTHETIC FASTING TO PREVENT PERIOPERATIVE COMPLICATIONS

Abstract

Preoperative fasting is a practice adopted with the intention of reducing the threat of bronchoaspiration during the anesthetic process, enabling greater surgical guarantee, protecting the airway of patients, especially when there is delayed gastric emptying. This study aims to review recent and future approaches to preoperative fasting. This study is a narrative review of the literature, with the objective of identifying new approaches and future perspectives for the treatment of migraine. It is an integrative literature review. This research seeks to describe their results through scientific publications, explaining their causes. Method that constitutes an instrument of Evidence-Based Practice and that contemplates the analysis of several studies on the subject, establishing comparative analyses between them, in order to synthesize knowledge and incorporate the applicability of the results of significant studies in daily practice. Data were collected using the scientific databases: Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS), Scientific Electronic Library Online (SCIELO) and Google Scholar. The following descriptors were used: “preoperative fasting, bronchoaspiration”, “pre-anesthetic fasting”, “fasting under anesthesia”, in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Associated with the Boolean operator AND: “preoperative fasting” AND “bronchoaspiration”. The studies on the ideal preoperative fasting time that best fit the objective and were published between 2020 and 2025 were used in this research. Non-systematic review studies, theses and dissertations were excluded. The practice of pre-anesthetic fasting is essential to prevent complications in the perioperative period, especially bronchoaspiration. However, recent scientific evidence indicates that the flexibility of fasting protocols, allowing the ingestion of clear liquids up to two hours before anesthesia, is safe for most patients and brings significant benefits in terms of comfort and recovery. The implementation of these practices should be carried out carefully, considering the individual conditions of each patient and the updated guidelines of anesthesiology societies.