Anaesthesia and the 'inert' gases with special reference to xenon.

Xenon has many of the properties of the ideal anaesthetic agent and has been proposed as a suitable replacement for nitrous oxide in routine clinical anaesthesia. Xenon, krypton and argon are chemically inert under most circumstances, yet all have anaesthetic properties. Xenon is of particular interest because it is the only 'inert' gas which is an anaesthetic under normobaric conditions. Because of this property, xenon has an important place in the history of the development of theories of anaesthetic action and of concepts such as MAC. Cost is likely to be a major impediment to the regular use of xenon.