Medical gases labeling

The USP and NF standards give the basic measures required for medical gas strength, quality, and purity. The United States Pharmacopeia/National Formulary is available from the United States Pharmacopeial Convention, Inc., 12601 Twinbrook Parkway, Rockville, Maryland 20852. The USP and NF standards include requirements for packaging, labeling, identification, impurity levels, and assay procedures for certain medical gases. 

Compressed gas tanks of large industries (or of particular gas distributors) are often color-coded by their own specifications for easy ownership identification and/or gas type recognition. You should never trust the color markings of compressed gas tanks for identification unless the tank is used in medicine. The medical industries of both the United States and Canada have established color codes for medicinal gas tanks, but unfortunately they do not agree with each other (see Table 5.4). Otherwise, always depend on formal markings or labels for gas identification. If there is any question as to the contents of any compressed gas tank, do not use it instead, return the tank to your gas distributor for identification and/or replacement. 

Gas mixtures labeled as drugs or medical devices and not having another connection assignment. 

For stable y-labeling of inhaled aerosols, different radioisotopes (e.g., "C, Co, Co, Ga, " In, or Tc) are available, providing a wide spectrum of energies, types of radiation, half-lives, and doses. Unfortunately, it is technically difficult to label pharmaceutical agents directly, so that in most medical deposition studies a surrogate of radiolabeled particles or a mixture of drug substance and labeled particles is employed. 

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