Effect-Site Decrement Times

(From Hughes MA, Glass PSA, Jacobs JR. Context-sensitive half-time in multicompartment pharmacokinetic models for intravenous anesthetic drugs. Anesthesiology. 1992;76:334-341, with permission.)

The 20%, 50%, and 80% decrement times for fentanyl (black), alfentanil (green), sufentanil (red), and remifentanil (blue). When there is substantial plasma effect-site disequilibrium, the effect-site decrement time will provide a better estimate of the time required for recover than the context-sensitive half-time.