Anesthesia and analgesia
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Feb 2017
Vapor Pressures of Anesthetic Agents at Temperatures Below 0°C and a Novel Anesthetic Delivery Device.
At room temperature, the vapor pressures of desflurane, isoflurane, and sevoflurane are well above the clinically useful range. We hypothesized that therapeutic concentrations of these agents could be achieved at temperatures below 0°C, but the vapor pressure-temperature relationship is unknown below 0. Second, we hypothesized that this relationship could be exploited to deliver therapeutic-range concentrations of anesthetic vapor. ⋯ We report, for the first time, the temperature-vapor pressure relationship at temperatures below 0°C for desflurane, isoflurane, and sevoflurane as well as the TMAC of these agents: the temperature at which the vapor pressure is equal to the minimum alveolar concentration. We describe the construction and limited validation of an anesthetic vaporizer prototype on the basis of this principle. We conclude that clinically relevant concentrations of volatile anesthetics may be achieved at low temperatures.
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Anesthesia and analgesia · Feb 2017
Editorial CommentIs There Anything New About Preoxygenation? Duh, Yeah!