Control of Pulmonary Microvascular Perfusion
Funding:
Department of Veterans Affairs, Merit Review
Principal Investigator:
Project Summary:
Lung diseases such as the adult respiratory distress syndrome, respiratory failure, and pulmonary edema affect a significant percentage of the VA patient population and are often fatal. The seriousness of these diseases is caused by defects in perfusion in which blood flowing through lung microvessels does not become adequately ventilated with fresh alveolar gas. The key to successfully treating these diseases is to understand how microvascular blood flow in the lung is controlled. Unfortunately, this is a subject about which little is known. The grant addresses this gap in our knowledge with a new technique specifically designed to measure control in lung microvessels. Our approach is to infuse fluorescent latex particles of specific diameters into the pulmonary circulation, then use statistical methods to measure the patterns formed by these particles in confocal microscope images of lung samples. Our overall hypothesis is the a degree of control exists within lung microvessels that allows red cell perfusion to be directed. The studies are designed to identify this control by quantifying the dispersion patterns of trapped latex particles of specific diameters.
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General Surgery
University of Wisconsin Department of Surgery
First published: 07/15/02 Last updated: 10/07/08 webmaster@surgery.wisc.edu
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