Determination of Regional Blood Flow by means of Small Semiconductor Detectors and Red Cells tagged with Phosphorus-32

Abstract

THE determination of regional blood flow is of great interest both from a clinical and a physiological point of view. Several methods for doing this are available. Most of them, however, have the limitation that they give the blood flow in comparatively large masses of tissue, which may include parenchyma with different functions and different blood flows. The thermocouple¹, the hydrogen gas electrode² and the noble gas method (local-injection technique) offer the possibility of making measurements within small and anatomically well-defined regions. These methods must, however, be calibrated and can only be used in certain types of tissues, such as muscles and skin, because they will determine not only the blood flow but also the lymph flow, and in the kidneys the urine flow².