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ABSTRACT
Volatile anaesthetics as halothane, enflurane, isoflurane, sevoflurane and desfluane have significant role in surgery. Anaesthesia could affect breath holding and might cause a dose-dependent depression in respiration. Lung epithelial cells are the first barrier against inhaled agents. Among them the pneumocytes type II are the main producers of pulmonary surfactant. Damage of lung surfactant (LS) is one of the possible reasons for the respiratory complications. In contrast to studies, concerning the influence of general anaesthetics on lung surfactant functionality, there is still poor information about the influence, based on the alveolar cell cultures. In this review we focus our attention on the data indicating the harmful effect of anaesthetics and mainly of halothane on the properties of lung cells, biosynthesis, secretion and functionality of LS components, using an appropriate cell culture model system and we discuss as far as possible the mechanism underlying the halothane toxicity.