Minimal flow anesthesia can be initiated early with the use of higher fresh gas flow to facilitate desflurane "Wash-in".

BACKGROUND AND AIMS

More than 80% of delivered anesthetic gases get wasted at high fresh gas flows as they are vented out unused. Use of minimal flow anesthesia is associated with less waste anesthetic gas emission and environmental pollution. There is no approved or validated technique to initiate minimal flow anesthesia and simultaneously achieve denitrogenation of the breathing circuit. We studied the wash-in characteristics of desflurane, when delivered with 50% nitrous oxide, to reach a target end-tidal concentration at two different gas flow rates.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Patients were allocated randomly to two groups of 25 adults each. In Group A, with the vaporizer dial fixed at 4 vol %, after an initial fresh gas flow of 4 L/min was administered to wash-in of desflurane using the closed-circuit, with 50% NO in O, and in group B, 6 L/min was used. Minimal flow anesthesia, with 0.5 L/min, was initiated in both groups on attaining a target end-tidal desflurane concentration of 3.5 vol %. After initiation of desflurane delivery, the inspired/expired gas concentrations were noted every minute for 15 min.

RESULTS

In Group A, the target desflurane end-tidal concentration was reached in 499.2 ± 68.6 s±, and in the Group B ( < 0.001), it was reached significantly faster in 314.4 ± 69.89 s. Denitrogenation of the circuit was adequate in both groups.

CONCLUSION

Minimal flow anesthesia can be initiated, without any gas-volume deficit, in about 5 min with an initial fresh gas flow rate of 6 L/min and the vaporizer set at 4 vol%.