Scotland and soon the UK are to ban the use of Desflurane Anaesthetic on grounds that it has a high global warming foot print. Sounds very laudable? But it ignores the reason why it was developed, the medical benefits and why for most patients it’s better to go under with it. In my opinion it’s lunacy!
Now, I’m not medically trained, I’m not an anaesthetist or claim to have any specialist knowledge. I’m just one of a team of five who designed and developed the Tec 6 which is the thing that administrates the drug to the patient. As such I both had to know a great deal about the drug, its uses, benefits and how it has to be administrated. More importantly, I needed to know how it’s administered safely as we designed all the safety protocols for the delivery system. Im also retired so have no agenda.
Now, it’s few years back (c30 years!) I worked on the Vaporiser (that’s what the delivery system is called; think carburettor type device) but going under anaesthetic is a bit like flying, taking off and landing are the most dangerous, or for anaesthetics, going to sleep and then coming back around. Desflurane is still the best drug for most people, it works incredibly fast, it only needs a very low concentration of it in your blood stream to put you asleep. It needs the lowest concentration of any gas anaesthetic. In fact it’s virtually one breath to fall asleep and one breath of normal air to come around. Other drugs take a long time to come out of the body, and leave you feeling groggy for hours after surgery, that masks other symptoms that may need immediate treatment which isn’t good. One of the big benefits of this characteristic is that patients can leave hospital faster, don’t spend as much time in recovery, don’t need as much resources of the NHS.
Any downsides? Well it’s not the cheapest drug, it used to be around £10 / procedure versus £1 for the other stuff. You probably only need to reduce your stay in hospital by 5 mins to make it far more economic! But the cost is a reason in the early days hospital administrators balked at using it!!
So, if you want the least risk from an anaesthetic, fastest recovery time, shortest stay in hospital, you pick (if a suitable patient) Desflurane, so yes you should care. So what if it adds a bit to global warming, it’s benefits far exceed any downside and the green tree hugging loonies need to understand what stupidity they are inflicting on all of us.
Now, I’m not medically trained, I’m not an anaesthetist or claim to have any specialist knowledge. I’m just one of a team of five who designed and developed the Tec 6 which is the thing that administrates the drug to the patient. As such I both had to know a great deal about the drug, its uses, benefits and how it has to be administrated. More importantly, I needed to know how it’s administered safely as we designed all the safety protocols for the delivery system. Im also retired so have no agenda.
Now, it’s few years back (c30 years!) I worked on the Vaporiser (that’s what the delivery system is called; think carburettor type device) but going under anaesthetic is a bit like flying, taking off and landing are the most dangerous, or for anaesthetics, going to sleep and then coming back around. Desflurane is still the best drug for most people, it works incredibly fast, it only needs a very low concentration of it in your blood stream to put you asleep. It needs the lowest concentration of any gas anaesthetic. In fact it’s virtually one breath to fall asleep and one breath of normal air to come around. Other drugs take a long time to come out of the body, and leave you feeling groggy for hours after surgery, that masks other symptoms that may need immediate treatment which isn’t good. One of the big benefits of this characteristic is that patients can leave hospital faster, don’t spend as much time in recovery, don’t need as much resources of the NHS.
Any downsides? Well it’s not the cheapest drug, it used to be around £10 / procedure versus £1 for the other stuff. You probably only need to reduce your stay in hospital by 5 mins to make it far more economic! But the cost is a reason in the early days hospital administrators balked at using it!!
So, if you want the least risk from an anaesthetic, fastest recovery time, shortest stay in hospital, you pick (if a suitable patient) Desflurane, so yes you should care. So what if it adds a bit to global warming, it’s benefits far exceed any downside and the green tree hugging loonies need to understand what stupidity they are inflicting on all of us.
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) There are a number of procedures, where being able to vary the depth of anesthetiser is important. Having a rapidly acting drug is beneficial. When under anaesthetic patients can and do become too light and start to have sensation, a drug that can put them back under very very quickly is of benefit. In recovery, the best way of determining side effects is to talk to the patient to ascertain mental capacity, the sooner you can the better, a few minutes can make a huge difference between giving someone oxygen and irreversible brain damage.
