Ventilation and chemoreflexes during enflurane sedation and anaesthesia in man.

Enflurane sedation and anaesthesia in healthy fit subjects reduced ventilation and the response to carbon dioxide, hypoxaemia and a low dose of doxapram, all in a dose-related fashion. Comparing the three chemoreflexes tested, the response to hypoxaemia and doxapram were the more profoundly impaired; they were nearly totally abolished by anaesthesia. These effects of enflurane on chemoreflex activities are qualitatively similar to those previously observed with halothane.