Abstract
In 10 patients on maintenance dialysis red cell and plasma volumes (PV) were measured before and after dialysis and several times during the next 3 days in order to establish the usual pattern of intravascular variation associated with this treatment and to determine whether there was a correlation with dialysis induced untoward effects. PV decreased from 23.7 +/- 1.5 before to 20.7 +/- 1.5 ml/cm body height immediately after dialysis. Unexpectedly it was even significantly lower 16 h after (20.1 +/- 1.4 ml/cm). Nevertheless, undesired dialysis symptoms had disappeared by that time indicating that they had not been caused by a reduction in PV or that the patients had adapted to it. Changes in PV correlated better with changes in hematocrit (r = 0.89) than with changes in body weight (r = 0.60). Therefore careful determination of the large vessel hematocrit offers a reliable estimation of blood volume variations over short periods.
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