Artificial oxygen carrying blood substitutes.

Abstract

Oxygen (O2) is essential for animal life on this planet. In lower single celled organisms it is obtained by simple diffusion from the surrounding aqueous mileau, but higher animals have systems designed for transporting O2 to the tissues needing it. In the case of insects a complex system of branching tubes (tracheae) has been developed that ducts air to the tissues. These tracheae end in the vicinity of mitochondria and allow efficient O2 transport in animals below a critical body mass. Higher organisms have a system in which an oxygen transporting fluid is pumped to the tissues. This fluid (blood) usually contains a metal containing pigment of high O2 affinity. In mollusks and some arthropods this pigment is the copper containing hemocyanin. In almost all higher animals this is an iron-porphyrin ring containing protein (hemoglobin) packaged in cells dedicated to its transport in blood. Interestingly enough under very cold conditions the antarctic icefish, Chaenocephalus aceratus, makes use of high solubility for O2 in the plasma and exists without the need for hemoglobin (Hb) in its blood.KeywordsBlood SubstituteComputer TomographicHemoglobin SolutionLiquid VentilationPercutaneous Trans Luminal Coronary AngioplastyThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.