Anaesthesia & intensive care medicine
Volume 11, Issue 4 , Pages 140-143, April 2010

Principles of anaesthetic vaporizers

Judith Young BSc FRCA is a Specialist Registrar in Anaesthetics in the North West Deanery, UK. Conflicts of interest: none declared

Vikas Kapoor FRCA is a Consultant Anaesthetist at North Manchester General Hospital, UK. Conflicts of interest: none declared

Abstract 

Vaporizers are an integral part of modern-day anaesthesia, allowing the delivery of safe concentrations of volatile anaesthetic agent. Over time, vaporizer design has improved to be closer to the ideal. Today, vaporizers can be classified as ‘variable bypass’, where a portion of the fresh gas flow passes through the vaporizing chamber, or ‘measured flow’, where the flow of volatile agent is separately measured as it passes under pressure into the fresh gas flow. Understanding the operation of vaporizers, and the basic principles and designs behind this, is important to enable correct usage, handling and maintenance of vaporizers in everyday anaesthesia.

Keywords: Aladin cassette, Dräger DIVA, draw-over, measured flow, plenum, vaporizer, variable bypass

To access this article, please choose from the options below

Login to an existing account or Register a new account.

  • Purchase this article for 31.50 USD (You must login/register to purchase this article)

    Online access for 24 hours. The PDF version can be downloaded as your permanent record.

  • Subscribe to this title

    Get unlimited online access to this article and all other articles in this title 24/7 for one year.

  • Claim access now

    For current subscribers with Society Membership or Account Number.

  • Visit SciVerse ScienceDirect to see if you have access via your institution.
 

PII: S1472-0299(10)00002-0

doi:10.1016/j.mpaic.2010.01.001

Anaesthesia & intensive care medicine
Volume 11, Issue 4 , Pages 140-143, April 2010

Article Tools

* Image Usage & Resolution