Inhalation anesthesia in experimental radiotherapy: a reliable and time-saving system for multifractionation studies in a clinical department.

An inhalation anesthesia system has been employed to overcome several of the limitations associated with the use of sodium pentobarbital and other i.p. administered anesthetics in experimental radiotherapy. The described method is reliable and time-saving. The depth and duration of anesthesia are easily controllable. Only 4 deaths have occurred with more than 6000 animal exposures. The use of polystyrene jigs is shown to provide adequate thermal isolation. Oxygen as a carrier of the anesthetic agent is expected to prevent a reduced tissue oxygenation and its radiobiological consequences. The whole system is constructed as a mobile unit in which up to 16 mice or rats can be anesthetized simultaneously and irradiated in a single field with clinical treatment equipment during short time intervals between patient irradiations. The described advantages of this method make it specially suited for experiments with protracted fractionation schedules.