Extracorporeal CO2-removal: pulmonary and extracorporeal equilibria in dogs and sheep.

Extracorporeal CO2-removal promises to be an efficient alternative to the conservative treatment of advanced lung diseases. Extracorporeal CO2-removal is achieved in a veno-venous bypass in combination with low frequency ventilation. Positive clinical results in the treatment of adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) are encouraging. In order to prove the applicability of this method to different kinds of respiratory insufficiency, physiological studies using animal models are necessary. We report here on experiments with dogs and sheep undergoing a veno-venous bypass employing a CO2-eliminator. The experimental results are compared with theoretical values which predict the important relationships between blood flow rate of the extracorporeal circulation (ECC), the CO2-elimination capacity of the CO2-eliminator and the low ventilation rate (down to apnea for 5 h) of the natural lung. It was shown that the blood gas data as well as acid base status could be maintained within physiological ranges.