Tissue fluid pressures: From basic research tools to clinical applications

• Main Authors: Alan R Hargens, Wayne H Akeson, Scott J Mubarak, Charles A Owen, David H Gershuni, Steven R Garfin, Richard L Lieber, Larry A Danzig, Michael J Botte, Richard H Gelberman
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: 1989
• Subjects: Antarctic; Scripps; Antarc*
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.1078.2977; http://muscle.ucsd.edu/More_HTML/papers/pdf/Hargens_JOR_1989.pdf

Summary: The two basic research tools developed to measure tissue fluid pressure (wick catheter) and osmotic pressure (colloid osmometer) have undergone extensive validation and refinement over the past 20 years. Using these techniques, basic science investigations were undertaken of edema in Amazon reptiles, pressure-volume relations in animals and plants, adaptive physiology of Antarctic penguins and fishes, edema in spawning salmon, tissue fluid balance in humans under normal conditions and during simulated weightlessness, and orthostatic adaptation in a mammal with high and variable blood pressures-the giraffe. Twenty years ago, techniques were developed for basic science studies of interstitial fluid pressure and colloid osmotic pressure during the 1967 R/V ALPHA HELIX Expedition to the Amazon River (21,43). The wick catheter technique was used to examine pressure-volume relationships in animal tissues, and a simple colloid osmometer was employed to assess blood samples from Amazon animals. These techniques were refined during subsequent expeditions from Scripps Institution of