Introduction:

History of recent or active upper respiratory tract infection is common in many children undergoing general anesthesia procedures.

Objective:

To conduct a narrative review of anesthetic management guidelines for children with recent or active upper respiratory tract infection.

Materials and methods:

A structured literature search was conducted in ProQuest, EBSCO, ScienceDirect, PubMed, LILACS, Embase, Trip Database, SciELO and Cochrane Library databases with the terms Anesthesia AND Respiratory Tract Infections AND Complications; Anesthesia AND Upper respiratory tract infection AND Complications; Anesthesia, General AND Respiratory Tract Infections AND Complications; Anesthesia, General AND Upper respiratory tract infection AND Complications; Anesthesia AND Laryngospasm OR Bronchospasm. The search was done in English with its equivalents in Spanish.

Results:

56 articles had information relevant to meet the objective of this review.

Conclusions:

Minimizing manipulation of the airway tends to decrease the frequency and severity of perioperative adverse respiratory events. There is not sufficient evidence to recommend drug optimization in patients with upper respiratory tract infection.

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