Pulmonary extravascular water volumes from transit time and slope data

¹ Department of Physiological Chemistry and Medicine, The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine; and the Medical Division, Baltimore City Hospitals, Baltimore, Maryland

In single injection indicator-dilution experiments in the heart-lung system of anesthetized dogs, labeled water has a significantly greater distribution volume than simultaneously injected Na²² or T-1824, which have nearly identical concentration-time curves. Values for needle-to-needle vascular and aqueous compartments are calculated from the blood flow and the appropriate mean transit times. Values for the extravascular pulmonary water compartment, obtained by difference, are of the order of 4.3 ml/kg body wt. Similar calculations from the slope volumes (Newman et al., Circulation 4: 735, 1951) provide values of the order of 3.0 ml/kg body wt. The approximate concordance of the two sets of values is not considered validation of the slope calculation, which remains without an anatomically defined basis. Other limitations of the experimental procedures and calculations are considered. The value of 4.3 ml/kg body wt. obtained by the transit time calculation is considered to provide an upper limit to the volume of pulmonary tissue water involved in gas exchanges.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				R. M. Effros The beta-Agonist Lung Injury Trial (BALTI). Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., June 1, 2006; 173(11): 1290 - 1290. [Full Text] [PDF]

				M. G. Latour, A. Brault, P.-M. Huet, and J.-M. Lavoie Effects of acute physical exercise on hepatocyte volume and function in rat Am J Physiol Regulatory Integrative Comp Physiol, May 1, 1999; 276(5): R1258 - R1264. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]