Cortical blood flow: thermal diffusion vs isotope clearance.

A thermal diffusion flow probe incorporating a Peltier stack has been found to give a quantitative dynamic assessment of cortical blood flow in both the laboratory and clinical settings. Further calibration characteristics of the probe were evaluated by correlation with the fast component of Xe133 clearance in cats. The correlation has some linear characteristics but is better defined by the equation: CBFp = phi(1/delta V - 1/delta Vo) Where CBFp is flow in ml/100 g/min, delta V is the voltage difference of the thermocouples, and delta Vo is the voltage difference of the thermocouples with no flow, which was 342.8 +/- 12.9 microv. Phi describes the characteristics of the probe and was determined to be 52,431.2 +/- 4796.3. The average deviation of the calculated curve from the experimental data points was +/- 6.3. The calculated phi differed markedly from the mean when Xe133 fast component flows were less than 35 ml/100 g/min. This is evidence that CBF as measured by Xe133 clearance analyzed by the bicompartmental technique loses accuracy at lower flows. The thermal diffusion flow probe is a good device for evaluation of flow in acute ischemia models since it can delineate abrupt flow variations. Theoretically the flow probe can accurately measure flow at ischemic levels.