Exposure to opiates in the operating room, a risk factor for abuse and dependence for anesthesiologists?

The volatile anesthetics used in surgery could promote the development of behaviors of abuse and dependence among anesthetists, suggests a U.S. study presented at the Society for Neuroscience, held in San Diego
Dr. Mark Gold and his colleagues at the University of Florida in Gainesville were observed in a previous study that each year, anesthesiologists were over-represented among physicians followed for behaviors of abuse or drug dependence (between 15 % and 25%) and they showed more dependent on opiates.

They then assumed that the risk of addictive behavior in this specialty may be more related to the involuntary exposure to opiates in a professional setting as easy access to these products.

The researchers were interested in two anesthetics administered intravenously, which are detectable (using latest tools) in the air of the operating room, the highest concentration being recorded in the exhaled air by an anesthetized patient.

But anesthesiologists are sitting near the patient's head during surgery long term, says Dr. Mark Gold said in a statement from the university. Thus, the products studied, "which can be a thousand times more powerful than heroin, are found in the air and could reach the brain can change, then making dependent anesthesiologists," he supposes.

This involuntary exposure that Dr. Mark Gold compared to passive smoking could cause a phenomenon of tolerance, that is to say that the effect of the product decreases progressively and pushes to increase the dose.

Passive exposure to anesthetics represent a risk factor for addiction professional anesthetics, in addition to family history and access to the products, but this hypothesis remains to be seen, recognized the researcher.