The effects of fentanyl and thiopental on breathing in man.

Abstract

The effects of anesthetic agents on breathing in man are not well described. In part this reflects the difficulty in obtaining control measurements in awake man, without awareness of the subject that his breathing is being measured. In the present work we report a method for assessing respiratory volume changes in man by measuring body surface displacements. This method has the advantage that since measurements are not made at the mouth, subject awareness (and presumably behavioral alteration) of spontaneous breathing is minimized. An additional advantage of the present work is that continuous measurements of respiratory volume changes can be recorded prior to, during, and subsequent to the induction of general anesthesia. Because of the continuous nature of the measurement we hoped to be able to resolve the controversy concerning changes in functional residual capacity (FRC) and breathing pattern during anesthesia.KeywordsLung VolumeSpontaneous BreathingFunctional Residual CapacityBreathing PatternInspiratory CapacityThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.