Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists' occupational exposure to inhalational anesthetic agents: a survey of anesthetic gas safety.

Background: Anesthetic gases have been known to cause damage when inhaled over long periods of time. Modern safety measures have been put in place to reduce the risk to anesthesia providers, however there is continued lack of information on providers experiencing short term effects (lethargy, fatigue, headache, slowed cognitive ability, nausea, and mucosal irritation) thereby leading to long-term sequalae (sister chromatid exchanges, micronuclei, chromosomal aberrations, and comet assays).

Method: A thirteen item, multiple choice survey was sent to 3,000 anesthesia providers, of which 463 completed the survey.