Life Cycle Analysis of Anaesthetic Agents

How do the drugs we use affect the environment? In this article, we discuss life cycle assessments for anaesthetic agents.

Evaluates the environmental impact of a product over its entire life cycle.
Holistic approach that takes into account all the activities involved in the creation of a product
- Material extraction
- Manufacturing
- Transportation
- Distribution
- Use
- Disposal
Quantifies and compares the ecological footprint of various inhalational and intravenous anaesthetics

Sherman et al undertook LCAs for 5 common anaesthetic agents
- Sevoflurane
- Desflurane
- Isoflurane
- Nitrous oxide
- Propofol
Desflurane accounted for the largest life cycle GHG impact
- 15 times that of isoflurane
- 20 times that of sevoflurane
GHG impacts of propofol are comparatively quite small, nearly 4 orders of magnitude lower than those of desflurane or nitrous oxide.
Using nitrous oxide as a carrier gas significantly increases the GHG all drugs
Inhalation anesthetics are greenhouse gases and the life cycle GHG emissions include waste anesthetic gases vented to the atmosphere and emissions that arise from other life cycle stages.
GHG impacts of propofol primarily stem from the electricity required for the syringe pump and not from drug production or direct release to the environment.