Arterial and mixed venous xenon blood concentrations in pigs during wash-in of inhalational anaesthesia

Br J Anaesth. 2001 Sep;87(3):497-8. doi: 10.1093/bja/87.3.497.

Abstract

There are no data available on the kinetics of blood concentrations of xenon during the wash-in phase of an inhalation anaesthesia aiming at 1 MAC end-expiratory concentration. Therefore, we anaesthetized eight pigs with continuous propofol and fentanyl and measured arterial, mixed venous and end-expiratory xenon concentrations by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 15, 20, 30, 60 and 120 min after starting the anaesthetic gas mixture [67% xenon/33% oxygen; 3 litre x min(-1) during the first 10 min, thereafter minimal flow with 0.48 (SD 0.03) litre x min(-1)]. End-expiratory xenon concentrations plateaued (defined as <5% change from the preceding value) at 64 (6) vol% after 7 min, and arterial and mixed venous xenon concentrations after 5 and 15 min respectively. The highest arterio-venous concentration difference occurred after 3 min. Using the Fick principle, we calculated a mean xenon uptake of 3708 (829) and 9977 (3607) ml after 30 and 120 min respectively.

MeSH terms

  • Anesthesia, Inhalation / methods
  • Anesthetics, Inhalation / blood*
  • Anesthetics, Inhalation / pharmacokinetics
  • Animals
  • Swine
  • Xenon / blood*
  • Xenon / pharmacokinetics

Substances

  • Anesthetics, Inhalation
  • Xenon