The impact of fresh gas flow on wash-in, wash-out time and gas consumption for sevoflurane and desflurane, comparing two anaesthesia machines, a test-lung study.

Low-flow anaesthesia is considered beneficial for the patient and the environment, and it is cost reducing due to reduced anaesthetic gas consumption. An initial high-flow to saturate the circle system ( ) is desirable from a clinical point of view. We measured the wash-in and wash-out times (time to saturate and to eliminate the anaesthetic agent, AA), for sevoflurane and desflurane, in a test-lung with fixed 3 MAC vaporizer setting at different fresh gas flow (FGF) and calculated the consumption of AA.