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In a new scientific paper, Vollmer and his\ncolleagues report the 2014 atmospheric concentration of desflurane as 0.30\nparts per trillion (ppt). Isoflurane, sevoflurane and halothane came in at\n0.097 ppt, 0.13 ppt and 0.0092 ppt, respectively. Carbon dioxide — which hit\n400 parts per million in 2014 -is a billion times more abundant than the most\nprevalent of these anesthetics. The team did not include the common anesthesia\nnitrous oxide in the study because it has many sources other than anesthetics.\nThe team’s anesthesia-gas findings have been published online in Geophysical\nResearch Letters<\/em>, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The researchers obtained their numbers by\ncollecting samples of air from remote sites in the Northern Hemisphere since\n2000, as well as aboard the icebreaker research vessel Araon during an\nexpedition in the North Pacific in 2012 and at the South Korea Antarctic\nstation King Sejong in the South Shetland Islands. They have also been tracking\nthe anesthetics since 2013 in two-hourly measurements at a high-altitude\nobservatory at Jungfraujoch, Switzerland, and from ongoing air sampling from a\nrooftop in a suburb of Zurich, Switzerland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n To turn these air samples into their global emissions estimates, the data were combined with a two-dimensional computer model of atmospheric transport and chemistry. The results are the first so-called top-down estimates–based on actual atmospheric measurements–of how many metrics tons of each anesthetic were released into the atmosphere in 2014. That can now be compared to “bottom-up” estimates by other researchers, which estimate atmospheric concentrations based on factors such as how much of each gas is sold annually, how much typically escapes through operating room vents and how much is not metabolized by patients.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although anaesthetics are small players in overall human-generated greenhouse emissions, they are a growing matter of concern to many in the health-care industry. Anaesthesia gas abundances are growing and should not be overlooked, said Yale University School of Medicine anesthesiologist Jodi Sherman, a reviewer of the GRL paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Health care in and of itself in the U.S. is\none of the worst polluting industries,” she explained. “It generates\n8 percent of U.S. greenhouse gases according to one study. Add to this the fact\nthat climate change has been recognized by the World Health Organization as the\nnumber one health issue of the 21st century, and it behooves us to do a better\njob with emissions.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anesthesia gases are something that the health care industry can easily do something about, Sherman added. Dropping desflurane, for instance, would make sense because it is the most potent greenhouse gas of the bunch. Not all anesthesiologists agree with that strategy, however.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “What the report fails to note is that a major\nfactor determining the environmental effect is the manner in which the\nanesthetics are used,” said anesthesiologist Edmond Eger of the University\nof California at San Francisco. “Many anesthetists deliver sevoflurane or\nisoflurane in a two — three liters per minute flow but deliver desflurane in a\nlower flow — 0.5 to one liter per minute …. Some believe that desflurane has\nclinical advantages that argue for its continued use.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n “There’s nothing unique about desflurane that\nwe can’t do with other drugs,” Sherman countered. “Desflurane we\ncould live without, and every little bit makes a difference.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n Story Source:<\/strong>\n\nThe above story is based on materials<\/a> provided by American Geophysical Union<\/strong><\/a>. Note: Materials may be edited for content\nand length<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The gases used to knock out surgery patients are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere, where they make a small contribution to climate change, report scientists who have detected the compounds as far afield as Antarctica. Over the past decade, concentrations of the anaesthetics desflurane, isoflurane and sevoflurane have been rising globally, the new study finds. Like […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[151],"tags":[223,222,224,225],"class_list":["post-2317","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","tag-anesthesia","tag-anesthetic-gases","tag-earth-temperature","tag-environment"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/iihmrdelhi.edu.in\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/Anesthesia-gases.jpg?resize=640%2C360&ssl=1\")
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