Renal 131i-hippurate clearance overestimates true renal blood flow in the instrumented conscious dog. Visscher, C. Antoinette, Dick De Zeeuw, Gerjan Navis, Annie K. Van Zanten, Paul E. De Jong, and Roel M. Huisman. Department of Medicine, Division of Nephrology, and Department of Nuclear Medicine, Groningen Institute for Drug Studies is part of the research school Groningen Utrecht Institute for Drug Exploration, University Hospital, Groningen, The Netherlands.
APStracts 3:0044F, 1996.
We evaluated renal 131I-hippurate clearance (ERPFhip) as a measure of renal blood flow (RBF) in chronically instrumented conscious dogs. When adjusted for renal hippurate extraction (Ehip:?0.77+/-0.01) and hematocrit (Hct: 39.7+/-1%), calculated RBFhip (656+/-37 ml/min) markedly exceeded renal blood flow measured with renal artery blood flow probes (RBFprobe:?433+/-27?ml/min). The discrepancy could not be explained by flow probe calibration, since in vivo comparison of flow probe values with renal venous outflow showed only a slight underestimation of renal blood flow (slope: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.89-0.97). Redistribution of hippurate from erythrocytes into renal venous plasma during or shortly after blood sampling led to an underestimation of Ehip by 4+/-1% and thus could only explain a small part of the difference. Extrarenal hippurate clearance was excluded, since the amount of 131I-hippurate cleared from plasma equalled that appearing in the urine (303+/-17 and 307+/-17 ml/min). Applying the above corrections, we found that RBFhip still exceeded RBFprobe by 37+/-3%. These data indicate that renal blood flow measured by the hippurate clearance technique markedly overestimates true renal blood flow. Since other errors were excluded, a combination of sampling of non-renal blood and intrarenal hippurate extraction from erythrocytes might play a role.

Received 1 September 1995; accepted in final form 13 February
1996.
APS Manuscript Number F291-5.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Renal Fluid Electrolyte
Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 20 March 96