• Anaesthesia · Jul 2019

    Comment Letter

    Desflurane - balancing the environmental costs and cognitive benefits. A reply.

    “Inhalational anaesthetic agents are chlorofluorocarbons, ‘greenhouse gases’ that have between 349 (sevoflurane) and 3714 (desflurane) times the global warming potential over a 20 year time horizon of carbon dioxide (isoflurane 1401), equivalent to driving a car 18 (sevoflurane) to ~350 miles (desflurane) per hour of anaesthetic use (isoflurane 30 miles); these figures do not account for the additional carbon cost of heating desflurane vaporisers. Together with nitrous oxide, inhalational anaesthetic agents contribute ~2.5% of the 22.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents the NHS produces annually.” - White

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    • S White.
    • Royal Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, UK.
    • Anaesthesia. 2019 Jul 1; 74 (7): 949.

    no abstract available

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    This article appears in the collection: What contribution does anesthesia make to climate change?.

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    “Inhalational anaesthetic agents are chlorofluorocarbons, ‘greenhouse gases’ that have between 349 (sevoflurane) and 3714 (desflurane) times the global warming potential over a 20 year time horizon of carbon dioxide (isoflurane 1401), equivalent to driving a car 18 (sevoflurane) to ~350 miles (desflurane) per hour of anaesthetic use (isoflurane 30 miles); these figures do not account for the additional carbon cost of heating desflurane vaporisers. Together with nitrous oxide, inhalational anaesthetic agents contribute ~2.5% of the 22.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents the NHS produces annually.” - White

    Daniel Jolley  Daniel Jolley
     
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