Leakage of volatile anaesthetics from agent-specific keyed vapourizer filling devices

Agent-specific keyed vapourizer filling devices were designed to ensure that an anaesthetic vapourizer is filled with the correct agent. Since there appear to be no reports of possible loss of volatile agent or operating room pollution resulting from either the design or patterns of use of these devices, measurements were made with three anaesthetic agents and two methods of use. First, two bottles each of methoxyflurane, enflurane and halothane were fitted with a suitable filling device and the weight of agent lost from each bottle over six weeks was measured. Bottle #1 of each agent remained without agitation between weighings; bottle #2 was tipped to mimic filling of a vapourizer. Weight loss over the six week period was 2.76 and 3.15 per cent of the halothane, 2.22 and 2.43 per cent of the enflurane, and 0.58 and 0.96 per cent of the methoxyflurane, for bottles #1 and #2, respectively. Second, pollution was measured with an infra-red analyser for halothane, using bottles #1 and #2, as described above, and a third bottle on which the filling device was replaced by the screw-on cap after each filling of the vapourizer. Vapour loss was undetectable for bottle #1, between 25 and 30 ppm for bottle #2, and between 350 and 400 ppm for bottle #3. Thus, although the design of the filling devices results in loss of the anaesthetic agent, this loss represents potential pollution only when the device is replaced by the screw-on cap between use. Therefore, when using filling devices, these should be left on the bottle of volatile agent between fillings to decrease operating room pollution.