Role of hemodynamics and vagus nerves in development of fibrin-induced pulmonary edema

Abstract

The rapid development of pulmonary edema that may occur in the rabbit after the intracisternal injection of a mixture of fibrinogen and thrombin has classically been considered to result from a vagally mediated increase in vascular permeability (G. R. Cameron and S. N. De, J. Pathol. Bacteriol 61: 375, 1949) and to not be dependent on hemodynamic mechanisms. We tested this hypothesis by evaluating the relationship between the degree of pulmonary hypertension and postmortem extravascular lung water content (EVLW) in both nonvagotomized (n = 10) and vagotomized (n = 7) rabbits administered thrombin (0.1 ml, 500 U/ml) and fibrinogen (1 ml, 27 mg/ml) intracisternally. No increase in EVLW was observed in either group unless pulmonary arterial pressure (Ppa) exceeded 25 Torr, and large increases in EVLW were only observed at higher Ppa's. These results thus indicate that some degree of pulmonary hypertension is required for the development of this form of edema. Because the vascular pressure required to produce edema in this model approaches that required to increase pulmonary vascular permeability in the rabbit, a pressure-dependent increase in permeability may be a common characteristic of neurogenic pulmonary edema in this species. Vagotomy had no protective effect but instead appeared to increase the amount of edema development for a given degree of pulmonary hypertension.