Advantages

Disadvantages

• Enables inhalational anaesthesia to be used in under-resourced or remote areas
• Compact, portable and robust
• Defaults to air when there is no oxygen available, without user adjustment
• The new closed reservoir systems allow for very good pre-oxygenation

• It is not possible to apply PEEP or CPAP with all systems
• No dedicated ventilator for portable systems
• Draw-over vaporisers not as accurate as plenum
• Difficult to pre-oxygenate with high-flow oxygen in some systems
• Valve at patient's airway is inconvenient
• Difficult to do an inhalational induction – mask needs to be held to face