Journal of colloid and interface science
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J Colloid Interface Sci · Feb 2015
Volatile fluorinated nanoemulsions: a chemical route to controlled delivery of inhalation anesthesia.
Novel dispersions of the volatile inhalation anesthetic sevoflurane have been formulated that can provide controlled, sustainable release of anesthetic over clinically useful timescales. The emulsions can be simply formed with manual shaking, reproducibly yielding droplets of the order of 250 nm diameter, i.e. within the nanoemulsion range. ⋯ Once consideration of the unusual nature of the fluorinated systems (phase separation by sedimentation rather than creaming), and the highly perturbed environment of their evaluation (under stirring and flow of gas), the observed behavior regarding sevoflurane evaporation can be reasonably well explained by existing theoretical models. Links between anesthetic release and emulsion structure have been defined, providing the basis for future development.