IV (intravenous) fluids used on critical patients in hospitals throughout the UK are killers, researchers have discovered. Starch-based fluids-which are expensive and considered a better alternative to saline solutions-are killing hundreds of patients every year in the UK alone.
The fluids are given to critical patients to lower their blood pressure, but they increase the risk of death by 10 per cent. Researchers from the Cochrane Collaboration, who made the discovery, reckon the fluids are killing around 250 patients in the UK alone, usually by triggering kidney failure.
The researchers are calling on the UK’s health regulators to stop the use of the starch-based colloid fluids immediately.
(Source: Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2013; doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD000567.pub6)
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