Determination of the volatile anesthetics halothane, enflurane, isoflurane, and sevoflurane in biological specimens by pulse-heating GC-MS.

Four kinds of volatile anesthetics (halothane, enflurane, isoflurane, and sevoflurane) that were dissolved in 3 microL of experimental plasma samples were examined by the pulse-heating gas chromatographic-mass spectrometric method, and this approach was found to be reliable for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The analytical results also showed good recovery and accuracy. This method was then applied to real blood specimens taken from patients during surgery. The same blood specimens were also analyzed simultaneously by the conventional headspace method for comparison. The data for the clinical blood specimens examined by these two methods showed reasonable correlation coefficients of 0.914 (enflurane) and 0.937 (sevoflurane). These results indicate that the pulse-heating method is applicable for toxicological and clinical analysis of several kinds of volatile anesthetics.