Nitrous oxide oxygen analgesia in children.

Nitrous oxide is a gas that has been used to provide analgesia to patients for more than a century. Ifs modern use started in the late sixties when a mixture of 50% nitrous oxide/50% oxygen was prepared. Nitrous oxide/oxygen provides analgesia within 3 minutes of inhalation and this analgesic effect disappears in less than 4 minutes after cessation. Ifs administration is v ery easy and a complete or partial pain relief is observed in 75 to 80% of patients. The gas mixture has been found to be safe with few side effects a nd no significant adverse reactions. Diffusion hypoxia which could lead to hypoxemia was reported in 1955, but recent work does not confirm this compl ication. Nitrous oxide /oxygen mixture constitutes an excellent drug to con trol procedure-related pain in children. This articles describes the histor y the pharmacology, and the clinical uses of nitrous oxide/oxygen in childr en. (C) 1999 Elsevier, Paris.