Korean J Anesthesiol.  2019 Jun;72(3):260-264. 10.4097/kja.d.18.00244.

Cerebrovascular reactivity to hypercapnia during sevoflurane or desflurane anesthesia in rats

• Sakata K
• Kito K
• Fukuoka N
• Nagase K
• Tanabe K
• Iida H

• KMID: 2454885
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.4097/kja.d.18.00244

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Hypercapnia causes dilation of cerebral vessels and increases cerebral blood flow, resulting in increased intracranial pressure. Sevoflurane is reported to preserve cerebrovascular carbon dioxide reactivity. However, the contribution of inhaled anesthetics to vasodilatory responses to hypercapnia has not been clarified. Moreover, the cerebrovascular response to desflurane under hypercapnia has not been reported. We examined the effects of sevoflurane and desflurane on vasodilatory responses to hypercapnia in rats.
METHODS
A closed cranial window preparation was used to measure the changes in pial vessel diameters. To evaluate the cerebrovascular response to hypercapnia and/or inhaled anesthetics, the pial vessel diameters were measured in the following states: without inhaled anesthetics at normocapnia (control values) and hypercapnia, with inhaled end-tidal minimal alveolar concentration (MAC) of 0.5 or 1.0 of either sevoflurane or desflurane at normocapnia, and an MAC of 1.0 of sevoflurane or desflurane at hypercapnia.
RESULTS
Under normocapnia, 1.0 MAC, but not 0.5 MAC, of sevoflurane or desflurane dilated the pial arterioles and venules. In addition, under both 1.0 MAC of sevoflurane and 1.0 MAC of desflurane, hypercapnia significantly dilated the pial arterioles and venules in comparison to their diameters without inhaled anesthetics. The degrees of vasodilation were similar for desflurane and sevoflurane under both normocapnia and hypercapnia.
CONCLUSIONS
Desflurane induces cerebrovascular responses similar to those of sevoflurane. Desflurane can be used as safely as sevoflurane in neurosurgical anesthesia.

Keyword

Cerebrovascular circulation; Desflurane; Hypercapnia; Sevoflurane

MeSH Terms

Anesthesia*
Anesthetics
Animals
Arterioles
Carbon Dioxide
Cerebrovascular Circulation
Hypercapnia*
Intracranial Pressure
Rats*
Vasodilation
Venules
Anesthetics
Carbon Dioxide