It is proposed to provide a firmer basis for diagnosis and therapy through an improved description of mass transport and reaction in the microcirculation. Expected benefits include more accurate and reliable interpretation of images obtained in clinical situations, for example, using Gamma-protons, positrons, or NMR, and more effective design of drug regiments. We also expect to obtain physiological insight into microciculatory dynamics. These goals are to be accomplished by a combination of modelling and experiment. The immediate goal of this work is improved analysis of tracer response data, for example, in the determination of endothelial permeabilities or rates of glucose uptake and metabolism in parenchymal cells. The results should, however, find application int he study of a wide variety of physiological and pathological processes in both capillary beds, for example, in the brain and skeletal and cardiac muscle, and in sinusoids of the liver. The primary basis of the modelling effort is a mathematical technique recently developed in our laboratory which has proven both powerful and computationally effective in preliminary studies. It includes essentally all available analytic approximations as special cases and is complementary to the best numerical methods. We expect it to prove useful both for increasing the amount of information obtainable from experimental data and for speeding the often tedious process of parameter estimation. The experimental work will consist of indicator dilution studies and is to be carried out in the physiology department of the University of Washington, Seattle.
| Lightfoot, E N; Rudolph, R F; Lenhoff, A M et al. (1986) Hydrogen washout in bone cortex and periosteum. Undersea Biomed Res 13:425-41 |
