You are here

  • Home
  • Online First
  • 'Green-gional' anesthesia: the non-polluting benefits of regional anesthesia to decrease greenhouse gases and attenuate climate change

Article Text

Article menu

other Versions

Download PDFPDF
Daring discourse
'Green-gional' anesthesia: the non-polluting benefits of regional anesthesia to decrease greenhouse gases and attenuate climate change
  1. Mausam Kuvadia1,2,
  2. Cynthia Eden Cummis3,
  3. Gregory Liguori1 and
  4. Christopher L Wu1
  1. 1Anesthesiology, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, New York, USA
  2. 2Anesthesiology, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, New York, USA
  3. 3World Resources Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Christopher L Wu, Anesthesiology, Hospital for Special Surgery, New York, NY 10021, USA; wuch{at}hss.edu

Abstract

Volatile halogenated gases and nitrous oxide used as part of a balanced general anesthetic may contribute to global warming. By avoiding volatile inhalational agent use, regional anesthesia may reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help prevent global warming. We present a theoretical calculation of the potential benefits and a real-life example of how much regional anesthesia may reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

  • regional anesthesia
  • technology
  • outcomes

http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/rapm-2020-101452

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @ChrisWuMD

    • Contributors All authors listed have contributed to the concept, design, and writing of this manuscript. All authors have reviewed and approve of the manuscript submitted.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.