Reference values for red cell survival times.

The first purpose of this investigation was to investigate in 35 young normal male subjects the use of the Dornhorst function and the weighted-mean method to calculate reference values for mean red cell survival time with and without correction for elution of 51Cr. We compared survival times calculated with the Dornhorst and weighted-mean methods with survival time estimated with linear or exponential models. Two methods to correct for elution of 51Cr from red cells were investigated. For the first method, correction factors were generated using the Dornhorst function fitted to mean survival curves obtained from the normal subjects. In the second method, the new Dornhorst rate constant method, the survival time, corrected for elution of 51Cr, was directly calculated from the experimental survival curve without applying correction factors. Correction for elution using the Dornhorst rate constant method was not successful and resulted in nonphysiologic values. The 95% confidence range of red cell survival time for reference subjects without correction for 51Cr elution was 37-74 days for the weighted-mean method and 37 to 73 days for the Dornhorst method. The 95% confidence range for normal subjects when the survival curves were corrected for elution was 47-179 days for the Dornhorst method and 58-161 days for the weighted-mean method. The poor results obtained with the Dornhorst rate constant method and the large 95% confidence range were due to the rapid and large variation in elution rate of 51Cr from red cells.