UNLABELLED Nitrous oxide anesthesia causes increased postoperative plasma homocysteine levels. Acute increases in plasma homocysteine are associated with impaired endothelial function and procoagulant effects. This nitrous oxide-induced plasma homocysteine increase may therefore affect the risk of perioperative cardiovascular events. This prospective, randomized study was therefore designed to ...

BACKGROUND Some anesthetics have been suggested to induce neurotoxicity, including promotion of Alzheimer's disease neuropathogenesis. Nitrous oxide and isoflurane are common anesthetics. The authors set out to assess the effects of nitrous oxide and/or isoflurane on apoptosis and beta-amyloid (Abeta) levels in H4 human neuroglioma cells and primary neurons from naïve mice. METHODS The cells ...

The objective was to investigate the effect of nitrous/oxygen in chronic pain. Seventy-seven chronic pain patients referred to dental treatment with conscious sedation with nitrous oxide/oxygen had their records included in this research. Data were collected regarding the location and intensity of pain by the visual analogue scale before and after the treatment. Statistical analysis was perform...

Inhalation sedation utilizing nitrous oxide-oxygen has been a primary technique in the management of dental fears and anxieties for more than 150 years and remains so today. Though other, more potent, anesthetics have been introduced, nitrous oxide is still the most used gaseous anesthetic in the world. Administered properly with well-maintained equipment, the nitrous oxide-oxygen technique has...

This study was designed to examine the effects of continuous exposure to low levels of nitrous oxide on several behavioral paradigms and the occipital cortex cells of mice. Different groups of mice were exposed to air or two different levels of nitrous oxide (1000 ppm or 2000 ppm) 8 hr/day for eight consecutive days. The exposure to nitrous oxide was achieved by placing animals in a specially d...

BACKGROUND Recent studies have questioned our previous understanding on the effect of nitrous oxide on muscle relaxants, since nitrous oxide has been shown to potentiate the action of bolus doses of mivacurium, rocuronium and vecuronium. This study was aimed to investigate the possible effect of nitrous oxide on the infusion requirements of cisatracurium. METHODS 70 ASA physical status I-III ...

The case report byHirvioja et al. raises some interesting points [1]. Unfortunately, the title is somewhat misleading because it suggests that it was nitrous oxide alone that caused the death and ignores the likelihood, from the data presented, that the death was probably due to the other substances found in the patient’s blood aswell as the nitrous oxide [1]. As far as I am aware, there is no ...

The kinetics of denitrification and the causes of nitrite and nitrous oxide accumulation were examined in resting cell suspensions of three denitrifiers. An Alcaligenes species and a Pseudomonas fluorescens isolate characteristically accumulated nitrite when reducing nitrate; a Flavobacterium isolate did not. Nitrate did not inhibit nitrite reduction in cultures grown with tungstate to prevent ...

In Reply:—Drs. Parker and Behringer correctly point out that in our review on the potential toxic effects of nitrous oxide we did not cover its contribution to the greenhouse effect; this omission was predicated by considerations of space, direct relevance to patient care, and a lack of relevant data that is less than 20 yr old. Correctly, Drs. Parker and Behringer indicate that nitrous oxide c...