Respiratory control in uremic acidosis

¹ Medical Outpatient Clinic, Bern University, Bern, Switzerland

Lambertsen and co-workers were able to correlate increments in ventilation produced by a number of acute experimental acid-base derangements in man with combined shifts in H ion concentration in blood and cerebrospinal fluid. Comparing hyperventilation in a group of uremic acidotic patients with ventilation levels of a control group by the same criteria shows that the measured values in uremic subjects are lower than those predicted. The tentative conclusion may be drawn that in chronic renal failure the respiratory center is adapted to blood acidosis by an elevation of its threshold level for the H ion stimulus.