title: High spatial resolution measurements of organ blood flow in small laboratory animals.
abstract: With the use of a newly developed Imaging Cryomicrotome to determine the spatial location of fluorescent microspheres in organs, we validate and report our processing algorithms for measuring regional blood flow in small laboratory animals. Microspheres (15-microm diameter) of four different fluorescent colors and one radioactive label were simultaneously injected into the left ventricle of a pig. The heart and kidneys were dissected, and the numbers of fluorescent and radioactive microspheres were determined in 10 randomly selected pieces. All microsphere counts fell well within the 95% expected confidence limits as determined from the radioactive counts. Fluorescent microspheres (15-microm diameter) of four different colors were also injected into the tail vein of a rat and the left ventricle of a rabbit. After correction for Poisson noise, correlation coefficients between the colors were 0.99 +/- 0.02 (means +/- SD) for the rabbit heart and 0.99 +/- 0.02 for the rat lung. Mathematical dissection algorithms, statistics to analyze the spatial data, and methods to visualize blood flow distributions in small animal organs are presented.
authors.affiliation: Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, University of Washington, Seattle 98195, USA. sbernard@u.washington.edu
authors.forename: S L
authors.initials: SL
authors.lastname: Bernard
authors.forename: J R
authors.initials: JR
authors.lastname: Ewen
authors.forename: C H
authors.initials: CH
authors.lastname: Barlow
authors.forename: J J
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Kelly
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: McKinney
authors.forename: D A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: Frazer
authors.forename: R W
authors.initials: RW
authors.lastname: Glenny
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001783:Blood Flow Velocity; D005456:Fluorescent Dyes / Q000493:pharmacokinetics; D007668:Kidney / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000166:cytology; D008168:Lung / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000166:cytology; D008863:Microspheres; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D009206:Myocardium / Q000378:metabolism*; D016012:Poisson Distribution; D011817:Rabbits; D051381:Rats; D012039:Regional Blood Flow / Q000502:physiology*; D013552:Swine; D014018:Tissue Distribution
chemical_list: D005456:Fluorescent Dyes