Cardiac Toxicity of Aerosol Propellants

No longer may the fluorocarbon propellants used in pressurized bronchodilator aerosols be considered "inert"; nor should they be judged unsafe and a contributing cause of death in asthmatic patients. The facts are clearly established in the coniderable research of the past two years. These halogenated hydrocarbon propellants, sometimes called fluoroalkane or haloalkane gases, bear a number of trade names, the more common being Freon in the United States and Arcton in England. The various fluorocarbon compounds are designated by numbers. The propellants used in the bronchodilator aerosols in the United States include fluorocarbons 11, 12, and 114. Fluorocarbon will be represented here by the letter F. That exposure to fluorocarbon compounds in high concentration for five minutes was capable of sensitizing the hearts of conscious dogs to large intravenously given doses of epinephrine, resulting in serious cardiac arrhythmias, was first demonstrated by Reinhardt and associates1and was confirmed in