Effects of six anaesthetic agents on UDP-glucuronic acid and other nucleotides in rat liver.

Anaesthesia affects the liver nucleotide pool. It was the aim of the present study to examine how anaesthesia for 60 min with pentobarbital, ketamin + diazepam, halothane, enflurane and isoflurane may influence the nucleotide pool in the rat liver, studied with isotachophoresis. It was found that none of the agents gave both safe and reproducible anaesthesia without affecting the nucleotide pools or affecting the experiments in some other way. Halothane and isoflurane were the two best alternatives with respect to both efficiency and safety. Isoflurane may be preferable since it gives a higher energy charge.