PRACTICAL APPROACH TO ACID-BASE-DISORDERS

Acid-base balance is a general term for the way in which the body main tains a relatively constant pH despite continuous production of metabo lic end products and is fundamental to physiologic homeostasis. Diseas e states of animals lean to irregularities of body fluid, electrolyte, and acid-base balance. With the advent of less expensive, accurate, a s well as portable blood gas and electrolyte analyzers, acid-base asse ssment has become a standard of care in veterinary medicine. It is imp ortant that the veterinary practitioner understand acid-base pathophys iology to assure successful treatment of these disease states. The pur pose of this article is to provide a simple and concise description of traditional and modern acid-base data interpretation and assist the p ractitioner with application of these methods.