Functional residual capacity during anaesthesia hi: artificial ventilation

The helium dilution technique has been used to measure the FRC of 13 patients before and during anaesthesia with paralysis and artificial ventilation, and also in 5 conscious subjects during spontaneous and artificial ventilation without paralysis. After induction of anaesthesia the mean reduction in FRC was 297 ml or 15.4% of the preoperative value and the change was highly significant (P