British Journal of Anaesthesia, 2004, Vol. 92, No. 6 786-789
© 2004 The Board of Management and Trustees of the British Journal of Anaesthesia
Editorial III
Xenon—cardiovascularly inert?
Klinik für Anaesthesiologie, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Postfach 10 10 07, D040001 Düsseldorf, Germany
*Corresponding author: E-mail: preckel@med.uniduesseldorf.de
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Xenon
is called a ‘rare’, ‘noble’ or ‘inert’ gas, all synonyms used for the eighth group of the periodic table of the elements. Of this group, xenon is the only gas with significant anaesthetic properties, which have been recognized for more than five decades.1 Its rarity—xenon represents only 0.0875 p.p.m. of the atmosphere— combined with the inability to synthesize the gas rendered xenon noble, and the resulting high cost prohibited its routine use as an inhalational anaesthetic. Thus, xenon is a rare and a noble gas, but is it also inert? There is increasing evidence from experimental data that, although chemically inert, xenon may cause several physiological changes. These biological side-effects could mediate organ protection and the use of xenon might therefore be beneficial in certain clinical situations.
Sanders and colleagues2 published an excellent review in this journal in 2003, summarizing the advantages of xenon anaesthesia in comparison with the
Experimental data
Clinical data
Myocardial disease
Effects on blood flow