- G Van den Berghe: Department of Intensive Care Medicine, Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
Drugs used in the perioperative period could have an effect on survival as recently pointed out by an international consensus conference on the reduction in mortality in cardiac anesthesia and intensive care. Insulin infusion to achieve a strict glycemic control is the best example of how an ancillary (i.e. non-surgical) drug/technique/strategy might influence survival rates in patients undergoing cardiac surgery. The author of this "expert opinion" presents her insights into the use of insulin in this setting and suggest that based on available evidence based medicine, insulin infusion, titrated to "normoglycemia" is a complex intervention, that not only requires the simple administration of a "drug", the hormone insulin, but also needs tools and skills to accurately measure and control blood glucose to achieve normoglycemia while avoiding hypoglycemia and large glucose fluctuations.