• A F Nimmo, A R Absalom, O Bagshaw, A Biswas, T M Cook, A Costello, S Grimes, D Mulvey, S Shinde, T Whitehouse, and M D Wiles.
• Department of Anaesthesia, Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK; Society for Intravenous Anaesthesia (Co-Chair of the Working party).
• Anaesthesia. 2019 Feb 1; 74 (2): 211-224.

AbstractGuidelines are presented for safe practice in the use of intravenous drug infusions for general anaesthesia. When maintenance of general anaesthesia is by intravenous infusion, this is referred to as total intravenous anaesthesia. Although total intravenous anaesthesia has advantages for some patients, the commonest technique used for maintenance of anaesthesia in the UK and Ireland remains the administration of an inhaled volatile anaesthetic. However, the use of an inhalational technique is sometimes not possible, and in some situations, inhalational anaesthesia is contraindicated. Therefore, all anaesthetists should be able to deliver total intravenous anaesthesia competently and safely. For the purposes of simplicity, these guidelines will use the term total intravenous anaesthesia but also encompass techniques involving a combination of intravenous infusion and inhalational anaesthesia. This document is intended as a guideline for safe practice when total intravenous anaesthesia is being used, and not as a review of the pros and cons of total intravenous anaesthesia vs. inhalational anaesthesia in situations where both techniques are possible.© 2018 The Authors. Anaesthesia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Association of Anaesthetists.

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