Reactive hyperaemia of the human lower limb. A comparison between the effect of tourniquet occlusion, selective arterial occlusion and intra-arterial papaverine injection.
Reactive hyperaemia of the lower limbs in 30 non-atherosclerotic subjects and in 24 patients operated for arterial occlusive disease was investigated preoperatively by electromagnetic flowmetry of the femoral artery. In normal limbs maximal flow values after 5 minutes of tourniquet occlusion averaged 482% of basal flow. Maximal flow increased little when occlusion time was extended beyond 2 minutes. This indicated that occlusion times shorter than the conventional 5 minutes were sufficient in clinical reactive hyperaemia tests. Selective occlusion of the normal femoral artery induced a maximal flow, which was about 50% of that obtained by tourniquet occlusion. The flow increase observed after papaverine injection in this group was 88% of the response induced by 5 minutes of tourniquet occlusion. After arterial reconstruction 5 minutes of selective occlusion of the reconstructed artery induced a maximal flow, which was only 150% of basal flow, whereas papaverine injection increased blood flow to 261.0% of basal level in this group. It is concluded that the hyperaemia induced by intraarterial papaverine injection is considered a useful index of the possibility of flow increase after arterial reconstructions.
D005263:Femoral Artery; D006801:Humans; D006940:Hyperemia; D007866:Leg / Q000098:blood supply*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009779:Occlusive Dressings; D010208:Papaverine / Q000494:pharmacology*; D012039:Regional Blood Flow / Q000187:drug effects; D014111:Tourniquets
D010208:Papaverine