Susan Ryan, MD, a clinical professor of anesthesiology at the University of California, San Francisco, analyzed the three inhaled gases most commonly chosen in ORs in North America and Europe, and identified sevoflurane as the gas which has the smallest carbon footprint.
Desflurane has the longest “lifetime” in the atmosphere and isoflurane falls in the middle.
In the Anesthesia & Analgesia article, “Anesthetic Gases Vented Unchanged Into Atmosphere,” Dr. Ryan and a computer scientist analyzed “infrared absorption cross-sections” to calculate the global warming potential.
Read the International Anesthesia Research Society news release on anesthetic global warming impact.
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