ELECTROLYTE TRANSFER DURING HYPOTHERMIA 



FRANK (JOLLAN 



I am ill the envia1)le position of l)eino- al)le to confirm in tlie intact animal the re- 

 snlts ohtaiiied on isolated organs. 



In collal)oration with Urs. Normal S. Olsen and Gnilford Kndolph we stndied 

 electrolyte transfer during hypothermia at the Veterans Hospital in Nashville, Ten- 

 nessee. Although we also have used tracer techniques, our approach was different 

 from the one of the previous speakers. We avoided asking difficult questions like: 

 how fast does an electrolyte travel to another site in the hody, or the even more 

 difficult question of how it gets there. Thus, in a sense, we have given up hefore we 

 started since we do not l)elieve that our body consists of two or more compartments 

 divided by a semipermeable membrane. Electrolyte transfer depends on such factors 

 as electrostatic charges, hemodynamics, gas exchange, pH, enzymes, and steroid 

 hormones. Therefore, we have asked one simple question only: how much of the 

 injected tracer can be found in a particular tissue after complete equilibration has 

 taken place in the intact body. Thus, we have investigated final concentration instead 

 of turnover rate or mechanism of transfer. 



Potassium,*- sodium.'-* and bromine^- were injected into 20 dogs for each isotope 

 and after 18 hours they were anesthetized with thiobarbital. Half of each group 

 were cooled by ice immersion to 23° C. Both groups were artificially overventilated 

 to exclude the influence of anoxic anoxia and acidosis. Then a thoracotomy was per- 

 formed and samples of blood, resting skeletal muscle, and beating heart auricle were 

 taken. 



The results (fig. 1 ) show that the major changes do not take place in the plasma 



CPS/UL OR GM. 



CPS INJCCTED/GM BODY WT. 



Na^'* D„82 



- 38* C. 



1- 23' C. 



X - STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT 



.42 



Na \ir 



PLASMA 



X X 



MUSCLE 



AURICLE 



Fig. 1.— Concentration of isotope tracers in plasma, resting skeletal muscle ami beating heart 



auricle. 



37 



