RESUMEN
Magnetic resonance imaging [MRI] is gaining ground over other investigations particular in study of brain and soft tissues. The MRI procedure is painless but requires an immobile patient for a successful study. Children are required to be sedated or anesthetized for this procedure. We compared two inhalational anesthetics, namely sevoflurane and isoflurane, for the recovery profile of each with aim to determine the ideal drug for early discharge of children. 100 patients aged 3 yrs to 10 yrs [ASA I and II] were divided into Group S [Sevoflurane], Group I [Isoflurane]. The induction time, duration of the MRI study, recovery and discharge times were recorded. The data were subjected to Students t-test and Levene's test for equal variance. In Group S, 27 male and 23 female were enrolled in comparison to 30 male and 20 female in Group I. The induction time in Group S resulted in a mean of 133.7 seconds [ +/- 19.32], Group I yielded a mean of 157.44 seconds [ +/- 24.20] p > 0.05]. The mean recovery time with Group S was 124.4 seconds [ +/- 31.57] when compared with Group 1 a mean of 376.46 seconds [ +/- 58.20] p < 0.05. The mean discharge time in Group S was 25.20 minutes [ +/- 5.71] in comparison to a mean of 37.40 minutes [ +/- 7.43] p < 0.05 in Group I. Sevoflurane can be an ideal inhalational anesthetic for Volatile Induction and Maintenance Anesthesia [V1MA] in children under going day case MRI examinations