POSSIBLE OVERESTIMATION OF PLASMA-VOLUME DETERMINED BY THE INDOCYANINE GREEN DILUTION METHOD IN THE PRESENCE OF PROTEIN LEAK FROM CAPILLARYBEDS - A DISCUSSION OF 2 CLINICAL CASES

Indocyanine green (ICG) has been demonstrated to be a reliable indicat or for the estimation of plasma volume in man. Since this dye is bound to plasma protein when administered intravenously, overestimation of the plasma volume would occur during the presence of protein leak from plasma. However, to our knowledge, up to now no report has described whether or not plasma volume determined by the indocyanine green dilut ion method (PVICG) is clinically significantly overestimated under suc h conditions. We report two burned patients who temporally had an unus ual large PVICG, even though other clinical variables did not support the presence of hypervolemia. From the case described it can be conclu ded that a possible overestimation of PVICG occurs when the vascular p ermeability for proteins is increased.