Fifteen patients undergoing surgery and receiving volatile anesthesia with
isoflurane were enrolled as the study group. At the same time, 15 patients
undergoing surgery with intravenous anesthesia drugs were included as a con
trol group to compare each other. Before surgery, 1 h after surgery, and 1
week after surgery, we investigated these two groups of patients with techn
etium-99m-labeled diethylene triamine pentaacetic acid radioaerosol inhalat
ion lung scan (DTPA lung scan), a test to evaluate lung ventilation (LV), w
hich was evaluated by the first and equilibrium lung ventilation image and
alveolar epithelial permeability (AP) which was evaluated by the half time
(T1/2, minutes) of Tc-99m DTPA radioaerosol lung clearance. No significant
change and abnormality of LV before surgery, 1 h after surgery, or 1 week a
fter surgery was found in either group of patients. In addition, no signifi
cant change in AP before surgery (T1/2 = 64.0 +/- 17.3 min), 1 h after surg
ery (64.5 +/- 19.6 min), or 1 week after surgery (63.6 +/- 17.6 min) was fo
und among the control group patients (p values > 0.05). However, a signific
ant transient increase in AP was found in the study group 1 h after surgery
(71.7 +/- 17.5 versus 51.2 +/- 16.4 min), but it recovered I week after su
rgery (51.2 +/- 16.4 versus 70.9 +/- 16.0 min) (p values < 0.05). We conclu
de that volatile anesthesia with isoflurane can induce transient increase o
f AP.