Hypoxemia due to venous admixture in cirrhosis of the liver

¹ Cardiorespiratory Laboratory, Grasslands Hospital, Valhalla, New York; and Department of Cardiorespiratory Diseases, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, WRMAC, Washington, D. C.

The percentage of venous admixture to arterialized blood was measured by two different techniques in two groups of patients with cirrhosis of the liver and, in both groups, averaged 9.7% of the cardiac output. Since one of the techniques was based on measurement of the arterial oxygen tension during oxygen breathing, the venous admixture must have resulted from some type of right-to-left shunt. It was not possible to determine whether the right-to-left shunt resulted from anastamoses between the portal system and the bronchopulmonary venous system or from pulmonary arteriovenous communications.