Ever see halothane on your gas analyzer? 65 yo healthy guy for revision hip arthroplasty. Case is normal and stable, running sevo and fentanyl, and out o nowhere, vaporizer starts reading nearly a Mac of halothane. I've periodically seen very short durations of small fractions of odd gasses, but this has lasted awhile. Any thoughts?
-
CycleTrack and SDN are teaming up to make medical school admissions more transparent and accessible! Read the announcement to learn how we’re supporting the future of CycleTrack’s free application-tracking tools .
Halothane
Started by cchoukal
Get help with your application
Use all the free resources available to you from SDN: articles, guides, expert advising, forums discussions, and school research.
There are a couple articles out there that say it could be from methane produced in the patient and erroneously recorded as halothane.
Here is a case report. My favorite line is at the end:
Here is a case report. My favorite line is at the end:
That's the most common reason. Residents, do you know why it happens?
It's still used in 3rd world countries like Brooklyn NY.
As the current gas analyzers use infrared spectrum I would guess the albuterol (or its propellant) have similar wavelengths? Just a guess though as my cursory google-fu failed me.
I've only seen it after giving albuterol, also. I just assumed the same as above.
I used to see it all the time on the gas analyzer, when using Halothane.😀
yeah i had no idea why it showed up until a resident told me the albuterol thing the other day
Well, good guess - it's the latter! The propellant is sufficiently similar to halothane that it confuses the machine. Cool, no?
