There is an increasing awareness that an elevated resting heart rate is associated with increased all-cause mortality in the general population and that this may be an independent coronary risk factor This review was undertaken to determine whether heart rate is predictive of increased mortality and major morbidity in noncardiac surgical patients and whether heart rate manipulation improves perioperative outcome. A search of Medline from 1966 until October 2007 was conducted using the terms "heart rate", "surgery", "cardiac", "morbidity", "mortality" and "perioperative". The main findings were that an elevated perioperative heart rate, an absolute increase in heart rate and heart rate lability are independent predictors of both short- and long-term adverse outcomes in patients at cardiovascular risk undergoing major noncardiac surgery. Although prospective nonrandomised and retrospective data suggest heart rate control improves perioperative outcome, there is conflicting evidence from randomised trials that perioperative heart rate control improves outcome. This may be because drug-associated bradycardia influences mortality in the perioperative period. Further studies reporting the absolute heart rate, the absolute change of heart rate and the time period of the observations are needed to identify 'early warning systems', which may allow earlier triage and improved outcome. Enthusiasm for this approach must be tempered by the appreciation that a J-shaped relationship probably exists between heart rate and morbidity, particularly following bradycardic therapy. Therefore, any bradycardic manipulation of heart rate in the perioperative period must be accompanied by simultaneous attention to other physiological variables associated with increased morbidity and mortality.