COMPARISON OF ARTERIALIZED VENOUS WITH ARTERIAL BLOOD PROPOFOL CONCENTRATIONS DURING SUB-ANESTHETIC INFUSIONS IN VOLUNTEERS

We have compared propofol concentrations in arterial and arterialized venous blood (from the radial artery at the wrist and a vein in the op posite forearm) in five volunteers during a sub-anaesthetic increasing infusion regimen designed to produce pseudo-steady-state arterial con centrations of 0.06, 0.17 and 0.43 mu g ml(-1). As in a previous study , we found no statistically significant difference between sampling si tes (P = 0.66). However, changes in the method of arterialization yiel ded a reduction in the observed variability, with the arterialized ven ous propofol concentration lying within +/- 23% (95% reference interva l) of the corresponding arterial concentration compared with 1 +/- 43% , as reported previously.