The influence of rheological and collapse factors on pre- and post-capillary flow resistances in the skeletal muscle vascular bed of the cat.

Abstract

The importance of passive-elastic changes of vascular dimensions and shifts in regional effective viscosity for the pre-/postcapillary resistance ratio (RA/RV), and hence mean capillary pressure (PC), was analyzed in cat calf muscles. Reductions of mean venous distending pressure below 6-8 mm Hg induced marked RV increases due to escalating venous collapse. This mechanism tends to delimit the PC reductions and rate of transcapillary fluid absorption during intense precapillary vasoconstriction. Comparisons of RA/RV for erythrocyte suspensions (Hct 40-50) and cellfree perfusates at identical vascular dimensions showed that RA/RV was considerably higher, and PC correspondingly lower, for the erythrocyte suspension except at very low flows. This RA/RV difference increased with increasing flow and at very high flows PC was about 10 mm Hg lower during perfusion with the erythrocyte suspension. These findings apparently diverge from the known influence of the tube radius and linear flow velocity on effective in vitro viscosity of blood. Since distal precapillary and proximal capillary sections, both having smaller diameters than the erythrocytes, are located upstream to the point of filtration-absorption equilibrium, they contribute in this respect to RA. It is therefore suggested that the increasing RA/RV with erythrocyte perfusion, particularly at higher flows, is not due to genuine viscosity factors but to friction losses when cells in "bolus flow" are squeezed through the narrowest precapillary sections.