Behavioral toxicity of anesthetic gases.

Operating room personnel were studied for evidence of acute reversible or chronic cumulative cognitive dysfunction as measured by psychometric testing. In comparison with matched controls, no acute reversible deficits were noted in a relatively unpolluted operating room environment. There were only 2 marginally significant test differences between the control and operating room groups; however, control subjects did better than operating room personnel on 16 of 18 tests at both the beginning and end of the work week. Analyses of the deficit patterns and correlations with years of operating room exposure only weakly support the hypothesis that the test differences are due to toxic exposure.