Starvation increases the solubility of volatile anaesthetics in rat liver.

We evaluated the effect of starvation on anaesthetic solubility in tissues involved in lipid transport (blood) or metabolism (liver) and in a tissue not involved in either (brain). The liver/gas partition coefficients of isoflurane, enflurane, halothane and methoxyflurane in rats increased by 15-20% after 6 h of starvation and reached a maximum increase of 35-42% after 24 h of starvation. After 48 h of starvation the coefficients had returned to control values. Blood/gas and brain/gas partition coefficients were not changed or were inconsistently changed by starvation. The maximum change in blood or brain solubility was 14% (at 6 h), and 29 of 32 mean values changed less than 10%.