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    A Caution on the Use of Routine Depth of Insertion of Endotracheal Tubes

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    Ⅵ CLASSIC PAPERS REVISITED An Early Example of Evidence-based Medicine Hypoxemia due to Nitrous Oxide

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    Diffusion anoxia. By Bernard Raymond Fink. ANESTHESIOLOGY 1955; 16:511-14. In 1955, Dr. Bernard Raymond Fink published his findings that described the mechanism by which hypoxemia occurred when nitrous oxide-oxygen anesthesia was discontinued and room air breathing commenced. Using an ear oximeter and brachial artery blood gases, he measured oxygen saturation in eight healthy patients who had received 75% nitrous oxide-25% oxygen for gynecologic surgery. He showed that oxygen saturation decreased from 5% to 10% and often reached a value below 90% when the patient began room air breathing after the nitrous oxide-oxygen was discontinued. The effect was seen over a 10-min period. He concluded that "anoxia arises because the outward diffusion of nitrous oxide lowers the alveolar partial pressure of oxygen." This phenomenon can become a causative factor of cardiac arrest in patients with impaired pulmonary or cardiac reserves. IN 1955, Dr. B. Raymond (Ray) Fink (1914Fink ( -2000 was faculty in the Department of Anesthesiology, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons (New York, New York) when he published one of the first articles describing a mechanism by which anesthesia could cause hypoxemia. 1 At the time, cyanosis was a recognized phenomenon during recovery from general anesthesia despite apparently good ventilation. It was also recognized that this was more frequent in patients anesthetized with a nitrous oxide-oxygen mixture. There were previous reports of a decrease in arterial oxygen saturation as measured by an ear oximeter when patients began to breathe room air, especially after a nitrous oxide-oxygen anesthetic. Ray followed this simple experiment with clinical observations in eight otherwise healthy patients undergoing gynecologic surgery who were anesthetized with 75% nitrous oxide-25% oxygen supplemented with sodium thiopental. Blood oxygen saturations were measured by either a Wood ear oximeter or brachial arterial blood analysis. Removal of the facemask at the end of the nitrous oxide-oxygen anesthetic resulted in a decrease in arterial oxygen saturation from 4.5% to 10.3% with an average of 7.9%, an effect that lasted approximately 10 min. The variability of change in oxygen saturation among the patients studied was attributed to differing levels of ventilation and lung volume. Fink observed that if patients were hyperventilating, the effect would be less, and the effect would be greater in patients with low lung volumes in which to dilute the nitrous oxide. The diffuAdditional material related to this article can be found on the ANESTHESIOLOGY Web site. Go to http://www.anesthesiology. org, click on Enhancements Index, and then scroll down to find the appropriate article and link
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