The use of ketamine plus diazepam anaesthesia to increase the radiosensitivity of a C3H mouse mammary adenocarcinoma in hyperbaric oxygen.

The radiation response of mammary tumours transplanted into syngeneic C3H mice has been measured with the animals breathing air or 100% oxygen at 290 kPa (HPO), either with or without ketamine plus diazepam anaesthesia. The single doses needed to cure 37% of tumours within 40 days (TCD37/40) for mice anaesthetised with ketamine plus diazepam and for unanaesthetised mice irradiated in air were not significantly different, 66.5 Gy and 68.8 Gy respectively. When animals were irradiated in HPO, the TCD37 value was significantly reduced from 60 Gy with no anaesthetic to 41 Gy with ketamine plus diazepam anaesthesia; an enhancement ratio (ER) of 1.5. The total ER from no anaesthetic in air to anaesthetic in HPO was 1.7 (68.8/41). There was less CNS toxicity for ketamine plus diazepam than for sodium pentobarbitone anaesthesia in mice treated in HPO. The combination of ketamine and diazepam is an unusual anaesthetic in that it maintains blood pressure, cardiac output and respiration in man. Vascular effects and lowered body and tumour temperatures may also have influenced tumour oxygenation and radiation response.