Rabbit lung plasma and erythrocyte volumes. Lung hematocrit in relation to total body hematocrit.

The total body hematocrit has been reported to be 85--90% of packed cell volume (PCV) in several species. We have found similar values in rabbits. An "extra" plasma volume must exist somewhere in the vascular bed to explain this observation. We have looked for such an extra plasma volume in the pulmonary vasculature. The dynamic hematocrit was estimated in isolated, perfused rabbit lungs from distribution volumes for plasma and erythrocyte tracers. Estimation was also obtained from indicator-dilution curves using bolus-injections of such tracers avoiding their recirculation. It was thus possible to calculate mean transit times for the tracers from their dilution curves directly or applying monoexponential extrapolation from the first part of the downslope of the curves. The dynamic hematocrit of the lung vessels was about 94% of perfusate PCV and there was no difference between the results obtained by the different methods. We concluded that in the rabbit only a very small part of the extra plasma volume is located in the lung vessels. The lung plasma volume is not underestimated by the indicator-dilution technique.