Interspecies Scaling of Anesthetic Potency

Anesthetic potency data for 11 volatile anesthetics were corre lated against body weight in multiple mammalian species, in cluding man. The results indicate that the alveolar concentration necessary to produce anesthesia is approximately constant across species. Because alveolar ventilation rates scale with the 0.75 power of body weight, this implies that administered dose mea sured in mg/kg0.75/day produces the same anesthetic effect in all species. This analysis provides further support for the use of a mg/kg0.75/day interspecies scaling metric for acute toxic effects.