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Thermoregulatory Defect in Rats During Anesthesia

BEN A. HITT, PhD^*, RICHARD I. MAZZE, MD, THOMAS L. COOK, MD, WILLIAM J. BEPPU, MD, and JON C. KOSEK, MD^||

*Consulting Assistant Professor of Anesthesia., Departments of Anesthesia and Pathology, Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto, California; Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305. Associate Professor of Anesthesia., Departments of Anesthesia and Pathology, Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto, California; Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305. Research Fellow., Departments of Anesthesia and Pathology, Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto, California; Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305. ||Associate Professor of Clinical Pathology., Departments of Anesthesia and Pathology, Veterans Administration Hospital, Palo Alto, California; Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305.

Abstract

Male rats of the Fischer 344, Sprague-Dawley, Brattleboro, and Wistar strains, balb/C mice, and Hartley guinea pigs were divided into 2 treatment groups. One group drank tap water while the other group drank water containing 1 mg/ml of phenobarbital. Animals were exposed to sevoflurane, enflurane, methoxyflurane, isoflurane, or halothane in a closed chamber. In some of the experiments, soda lime was included and in others the chamber was heated to 39° C with a water blanket. Eighty-six percent (43/50) of Fischer 344 rats treated with phenobarbital and exposed to either sevoflurane or enflurane, in the presence of either soda lime or exogenous heat, died within a few hours after exposure. Fischer 344 rats and rats of other strains drinking phenobarbital water and exposed to methoxyflurane were affected, but to a lesser degree. Rats drinking ordinary tap water and phenobarbital-treated rats not exposed to either soda lime or exogenous heat were unaffected. Guinea pigs and mice also were unaffected. We postulate that the toxic response represents a species-specific thermoregulatory defect, precipitated by heat and occurring in rats treated with phenobarbital in combination with sevoflurane, enflurane, or methoxyflurane.

Anesthesia & Analgesia® is published for the International Anesthesia Research Society® by Lippincott Williams & Wilkins with the assistance of Stanford University Libraries' HighWire Press®. Copyright 2006 by the International Anesthesia Research Society. Online ISSN: 1526-7598   Print ISSN: 0003-2999