Microvascular blood volume-to-flow relationships in porcine heart wall - in vivo evaluation with whole-body ct. Liu, Yun-He, Robert C. Bahn, and Erik L. Ritman, (with The Technical Assistance Of Patricia E. Beighley). Hypertension and Vascular Research Division, Henry Ford Hospital, Detroit, MI 48202, Department of Medical Pathology, and Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN 55905
APStracts 2:0199H, 1995.
The goal of this study was to evaluate the functional behavior of recruitable (mostly capillary) and of non recruitable (mostly arterioles, venules, etc.) components of the intramyocardial microvasculature in the in situ heart of intact experimental animals. For this purpose fast x-ray CT scans were performed in a group of anesthetized pigs. Each scan was performed during an aortic root angiogram and was repeated after sequential injections of a suspension of nonradioactive microspheres into a selected coronary artery. Regional myocardial perfusion (F, mL x g-1 x min-1) and intramyocardial blood volume (_, mL x g-1) were estimated from the dynamic CT image sequences. For the intramyocardial microcircula tion _=AF+BF 1/2 (where A=0.016 min and B=0.076 [ml x g-1 x min] 1/2 ) was shown to describe the _ to F relationship over the entire range of flows observed. With increasing embolization with 15_m diameter microspheres, the coefficients, A and B, changed in a way consis tent with A describing the transit time through the functionally recruitable component and B/F 1/2 the transit time through the functionally non recruitable component of the microcirculation.

Received 14 November 1994; accepted in final form 10 May 1995.
APS Manuscript Number H1011-4.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Heart Circ. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 26 May 1995.