A call for standards on perioperative CO(2) regulation.

摘要

The Journal recently published the International Standards to the Practice of Anesthesia. These Standards mandate the use of capnography, but they fail to provide guidelines for carbon dioxide management. Except under rare circumstances, carbon dioxide is inert, odourless, tasteless, invisible, and remarkably benign and beneficial. It is heavier than other atmospheric gases, so it accumulates in dependent locations, such as mines, where air circulation is lacking. Under these conditions, it displaces oxygen and causes death by drowning. Since this phenomenon was attributed to toxicity in earlier times and early gas research confused CO_2 effects with carbon monoxide toxicity, carbon dioxide remains widely but mistakenly feared as toxic and narcotic.