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Nitrous Oxide

Effect on Accumulation Rate and Uptake of Bowel Gases

Eugene P. Steffey, VMD, PhD^*, Brynte H. Johnson, AB, Edmond I. Eger, II, MD, and Donald Howland, Jr, BS

Department of Anesthesia, University of California, San Francisco, and the Department of Veterinary Surgery, University of California, Davis, California.

Abstract

Breathing 79% nitrous oxide (N₂O) in oxygen increased the rate of accumulation of bowel gas during intraluminal bowel segment infusions of hydrogen, methane (CH₄), air, or carbon dioxide (CO₂) in four pentobarbital-anesthetized dogs more than did breathing 100% oxygen. A N₂O-associated increase in the volume of naturally produced intestinal gas in five halothane-anesthetized ponies corroborated the findings in the dog studies. In a second group of four dogs a bolus of CH₄ or CO₂ was injected into the bowel lumen. When the dogs breathed O₂ the bowel gas volume decreased. Gas was virtually absent in the CO₂-containing segment within 20 minutes. Breathing N₂O increased the volume of the segments containing CH₄ while the CO₂ segments decreased less rapidly than during O₂ breathing. Breathing O₂ after 30 minutes of N₂O breathing caused'little change in the rate of decrease in CO₂ segment volumes. However, the CH₄ segment volume ceased to increase and eventually-returned toward control volumes.

Key Words: ANESTHETICS, Gases: nitrous oxide • GASTROINTESTINAL TRACT: intestine

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