Does Perioperative Hyperglycemia Increase Risk? Should We Have Aggressive Glucose Control Perioperatively?

Perioperative hyperglycemia is a common clinical scenario that is driven by preexisting patient characteristics and the imposed physiologic stress of any procedural intervention. It is well established that hyperglycemia is linked to increased morbidity and mortality in the perioperative period, but distilling available evidence into an optimal perioperative glycemic target and management strategy has proven challenging. This chapter describes the impact of perioperative hyperglycemia on patient outcomes and reviews the available evidence informing the risk/benefit ratio of targeted interventions in various patient populations.