[Techniques for evaluating the level of pollution in operating rooms due to gaseous or volatile anesthetics]

To evaluate the air pollution in operating rooms when anesthesia is carried out with an open-circuit anesthesia delivery system, two analyzers were tested both in the laboratory and in an operating room. The TIF 5500, a laptop instrument, allows the detection of gas with low ionisation potential such as chloro-fluorocarbons (lower detection threshold: 3 ppm). The Bruel & Kjaer 1302 allows the simultaneous determination of the concentrations of the different inhalation anesthetics in the room by photoacoustic spectrometry. For this type of study, the latter proved an excellent instrument.