The estimation of blood flow to hemodialyzers by bubble time.
Reliable estimation of blood flow to hemodialyzers is essential to the accurate prescription of therapy. Customarily an air bubble is timed as it traverses a racetrack of known volume and blood flow is calculated from the formula Qb (ml/min) = (volume/BT) (60 sec/min). The linearity of this relationship has recently been questioned. Air bubble velocities were statistically fit to measured blood flows over 6 hematocrit values. From the resulting relationship, Qb (ml/min) = 62 (vol/L) (L/BT)0.96, one can generate a table relating velocity to flow for clinical use.
D001783:Blood Flow Velocity / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D006435:Renal Dialysis