Shunt and ventilation-perfusion distribution during partial liquid ventilation in healthy piglets. Mates, Elisabeth A., Jacob Hildebrandt, J. Craig Jackson, Peter Tarczy-Hornoch, Michael P. Hlastala. Departments of Physiology & Biophysics, Medicine, and Pediatrics, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195 -6522
APStracts 3:0549A, 1996.
Replacing gas in the lung with perfluorinated liquid (PFC) and periodically ventilating with a gas (partial liquid ventilation or PLV) has been shown to improve oxygenation in models of respiratory distress syndrome. We hypothesized that addition of PFC to healthy lungs would result in shunt, diffusion impairment, and increased ventilation-perfusion () heterogeneity. Previously we showed O2 shunt and CO2 arterial-alveolar difference ((a-A)D CO2) increased linearly with dose in piglets given graded intratracheal doses of PFC: 10, 20, and 30 ml x kg-1 followed by mechanical ventilation with 100% O2 (17). Here we report distribution in the same animals showing a 50% increase in heterogeneity during PLV independent of PFC dose. Ventilation heterogeneity was the major factor in this increase and there was no significant change in dead space ventilation. We also report on 5 animals given a single 20 ml x kg-1 dose of PFC and followed for 3 hours. They showed an increase in shunt during PLV but no change in (a-A)D CO2.

Received 1 May 1996; accepted in final form 28 October 1996.
APS Manuscript Number A418-6.
Article publication pending Journal of Applied Physiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 31 December 1996