Predictions of capillary oxygen transport in the presence of fluorocarbon additives

A mathematical model of capillary oxygen transport was formulated to determ ine the effect of increasing plasma solubility, e.g., by the addition of an intravascular fluorocarbon emulsion. The effect of increased plasma solubi lity is studied for two distributions of fluorocarbon, when the fluorocarbo n droplets are uniformly distributed throughout the plasma and when the flu orocarbon droplets are concentrated in a layer adjacent to the endothelium. The model was applied to working hamster retractor muscle at normal and lo wered hematocrit. The intracapillary mass transfer coefficient was found to increase by 18% as the solubility was increased by a factor of 1.7 at a he matocrit of 43%. An additional increase of 6% was predicted when the solubi lity increase was concentrated in the layer adjacent to the endothelium. At a hematocrit of 25%, the intracapillary mass transfer coefficient increase d 14% when the solubility was increased by a factor of 1.7.