Elimination of homologous and heterologous (bovine) serum albumin from the blood circulation in the dog.

The elimination of intravenously administered I131-labelled bovine serum albumin has been compared to the elimination rate of relabelled homologous serum albumin in normal and bled dogs, which had lost considerable blood volumes. The investigation shows that during the first four to five days after the administration the elimination is similar of heterologous and homologous serum albumin. This proves that bovine serum albumin can be regarded to be an equivalent plasma expander to homologous serum albumin in the dog. Elimination of homologous as well as heterologous serum albumin follows a simple exponential curve during four to five days after administration. The intravascular half-lives for homologous serum albumin were 6.4 ±1.5 days and 6.4 ± 0.6 days respectively in control and bled dogs. Corresponding values for heterologous (bovine) serum albumin were 5.0 ± 0.3 and 4.8 ± 0.4 days respectively. The quote for cencentrations of homologous and heterologous serum albumin in different tissues was found to be relatively constant approximately 1.4. An exception was the stomach wall in bled dogs which had a quote of 1.1 only.