Xenon as a replacement for nitrous oxide?

Although nitrous oxide (N2O) has been used routinely since the beginning of the modern era of anaesthesia, some of its adverse effects have only been discovered during the last decades. Thus there are some who advocate abandoning the use of N2O for anaesthesia. However, if the use of N2O is stopped, the anaesthetic regimen will have to be changed in order to substitute for a loss in potency. Thus, xenon has been suggested as a replacement for N2O. N2O and xenon share some clinical and physicochemical properties. For example, both of them are only weak anaesthetics but are potent analgesics. However, in many respects xenon appears to be advantageous compared to N2O. Xenon exerts a high degree of cardiovascular stability and does not have teratogenic or fetotoxic effects. In contrast to N2O it does not support the greenhouse effect. The costs of xenon are prohibitively high at the moment. Advanced anaesthesia machines and recycling equipment have necessary in order use xenon in an economically feasible way.