Clinical drug investigation
-
Despite the increasing numbers of obese patients undergoing elective surgery, there is a lack of evidence-based dosing guidelines for peri-operative medications in obesity. ⋯ No drug recommendation achieved an "Excellent" quality of evidence. Limited data suggest that clinicians should consider each individual class of medication when selecting a dose for obese surgical patients. Routine use of fixed-dosing regimens is likely to under- or overdose obese patients thus predisposing them to adverse drug events or treatment failure leading to patient harm.