Regional extravascular lung water in normal sheep.

We measured the regional distribution of pulmonary extravascular water to test our prediction that, because of higher vascular hydrostatic pressure in more dependent zones, the bottom of the lung would tend to be wetter than the top. We injected eight normal sheep under halothane anesthesia with 125I-labeled albumin and killed them 5 min later. We suspended the sheep in the prone position and froze them solid in dry ice. We sawed the thorax into horizontal slices, chipped the frozen lung from each, and determined extravascular lung water and hematocrit. Hematocrit was calculated from separately measured red blood cell (tissue hemoglobin) and plasma (125I-albumin) masses. We found regional extravascular water was constant throughout the lung. Regional hematocrit was significantly higher at the lung base than at the apex in these slowly frozen sheep after death. Calculation of extravascular water using a single blood mass marker (hemoglobin) underestimated lung water, more so at the base than at the apex, because blood mass was overestimated. Accurate measurement of blood mass is critical in the calculation of regional lung water.