Canadian Anaesthetists' Society journal
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Comparative Study
Operating room air pollution: influence of anaesthetic circuit, vapour concentration, gas flow and ventilation.
Atmospheric halothane was sampled from three selected operating theatres and anaesthetic rooms during the middle of operating sessions. Two of the operating theatres studied were ventilated with total air exchange once every six minutes; the third operating theatre had no ventilation. End-tidal samples were obtained from anaesthetists. ⋯ A significant reduction in operating-room pollution was obtained by use of simple scavenging equipment. Scavenging of anaesthetic vapours outside the operating room led to 97.3 per cent reduction of overall mean concentration of halothane in the operating room atmosphere and reduction of 72 per cent in end-tidal samples of anaesthetists, with the Magill semiclosed circuit. The implications of these findings are discussed.
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Two cases of multiple sclerosis are described, in both of whom the disease started in yound adult life. This disability gradually progressed to the stage of paraplegia-in-flexion in which the lower limbs were fixed in adduction-and-flexion. Both patients developed painful muscle spasms which made life intolerable. ⋯ The second patient after the block developed a good result in the right leg, but still had mild, but painless spasms in the muscles of the left leg (Figures 4 and 5). However, she was able to use a wheelchair and was discharged to a chronic hospital where she died of bulbar paralysis six months later. Intrathecal phenol thus appears to be a useful method for relieving muscle spasms and pain in the lower extremities in advanced cases of multiple sclerosis.