DEVELOPMENT OF IMPROVED METHODOLOGY TO MEASURE PLASMA VOLUME

Evans Blue has been in clinical use for decades. A recent innovation promises to provide more accurate determinations of plasma volume with fewer blood draws. We have completed 13 of our planned number of 16 patients. The methodology is straight forward but may be imperfect in that our preliminary results suggest that blood collection and dye injection in the same limb (even after all recommended recordings) may be imperfect. We plan to complete our analysis of the data and decide as to whether we will complete the experiments as planned or with modifications.