Chemical regulation of ventilation during isoflurane sedation and anaesthesia in humans.

To assess the effects of isoflurane on chemical regulation of ventilation, we studied the ventilatory responses to (1) hyperoxic hypercarbia, (2) isocapnic hypoxaemia, and (3) a single half vital capacity breath of carbon dioxide 20 per cent in oxygen in 12 human subjects, awake and sedated or anaesthetized with isoflurane, 0.1 or 1.1 MAC. Sedation did not alter ventilation nor the ventilatory response to hypercarbia but reduced the responses to hypoxaemia and to the half vital capacity breath of CO2. Anaesthesia reduced ventilation and the response to hypercarbia and nearly abolished the responses to hypoxaemia and to the breath of CO2. The results indicate that isoflurane reduces ventilatory responses to several chemical drives and that it selectively impairs those responses mediated by peripheral chemoreceptors. In these respects, isoflurane is similar to halothane and enflurane.