IF YOU have major surgery, there is a good chance you’ll be kept unconscious using nitrous oxide or laughing gas. This anaesthetic has been around for over a century, and despite some evidence that it can cause post-operative nausea and vomiting, it is generally considered to be one of the safest going.
Now that assumption has been challenged by one of the largest clinical trials ever conducted in anaesthesiology. Paul Myles of The Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, and his colleagues found that there would be fewer potentially life-threatening complications such as wound infections and pneumonia following major surgery if…
