THE BLOOD-GAS PARTITION-COEFFICIENT OF XENON MAY BE LOWER THAN GENERALLY ACCEPTED

The blood-gas partition coefficients of xenon, reported more than 25 y r ago in the literature, vary considerably from 0.13 to 0.20. Conseque ntly, we have determined this variable by directly injecting xenon-sat urated blood into a gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer. This techniqu e yielded a blood-gas partition coefficient for xenon of 0.115 (95% co nfidence interval 0.107-0.123). The solubility in water measured ident ically was 0.096, consistent with the reported value of 0.085. These d ata and a detailed review of the literature strongly suggest that the blood-gas partition coefficient of xenon may be lower than the general ly accepted value of 0.14.