Sustained venous occlusion plethysmography: effects on protein osmotic pressure, intravascular volume, and capillary filtration.

In six acutely anesthetized, mechanically ventilated mongrel dogs, we evaluated sequential changes (over 30 minutes) of sustained forelimb venous occlusion (occlusion pressures 30 to 65 mm Hg) on strain gauge dimension, radionuclide blood pool emissions, and venous, subcutaneous, and intramuscular pressures (Wick technique). Forelimb intravascular volume (assessed by decay-corrected radionuclide counts/unit time) changed by a mean of only -1.2 +/- 2.8% (+/- SEM) and thus was ignored in the calculation of filtration rate. Forelimb (distal to the occlusion site) hematocrit changed insignificantly (45.3 +/- 1.4% at the control point to 48.2 +/- 1.1% at 30 minutes), colloid osmotic pressure rose slightly 19.4 +/- 1.4 mm Hg to 22.7 +/- 1.6 mm Hg, p less than 0.01), and serum osmolality remained unchanged. During sustained occlusion, venous pressure remained constant, subcutaneous pressure rose (-0.7 +/- 1.2 mm Hg control vs 0.5 +/- 1.4 mm Hg at 30 minutes, p less than 0.05), and intramuscular pressure also rose (-0.4 +/- 1.1 mm Hg to 2.6 +/- 1.6 mm Hg, p less than 0.01). Driving pressure, defined by venous pressure - oncotic pressure less the average of intramuscular and subcutaneous pressure declined slightly over the 30 minutes of the study (27.8 +/- 5.5 mm Hg to 23.3 +/- 1.3 mm Hg, p less than 0.05). The relationship between either the initial driving pressure or the initial difference between venous and protein osmotic pressure correlated (r = 0.83 for both) well with strain gauge estimates of capillary fluid flux (evaluated by the change in forelimb strain gauge dimension over time and given as cc/100 cc forelimb volume/min).(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)