British journal of anaesthesia
-
The effect of nitrous oxide on the minimum alveolar concentration of enflurane required to prevent movement in response to skin incision in 50% of subjects (MAC) has been investigated in two groups of 16 patients. The end-tidal enflurane concentration was held constant for 25-36 min in order to equilibrate the brain with the alveolar anasthetic partial pressure. When nitrous oxide (30%) was present in the inspired mixture the MAC of enflurane was 1.17%; the value decreased to 0.57% when 70% nitrous oxide was used.