A multicompartment model of carboxyhemoglobin and carboxymyoglobin responses to inhalation of carbon monoxide

1 Center for Biomedical Engineering, and 2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Kentucky, Lexington, Kentucky 40506 Submitted 3 March 2003 ; accepted in final form 5 May 2003 We have developed a model that predicts the distribution of carbon monoxide (CO) in the body resulting from acute inhalation exposures to CO. The model includes a lung compartment, arterial and venous blood compartments, and muscle and nonmuscle soft tissues with both vascular and nonvascular subcompartments. In the model, CO is allowed to diffuse between the vascular and nonvascular subcompartments of the tissues and to combine with myoglobin in the nonvascular subcompartment of muscle tissue. The oxyhemoglobin dissociation curve is represented by a modified Hill equation whose parameters are functions of the carboxyhemoglobin (HbCO) level. Values for skeletal muscle mass and cardiac output are calculated from prediction formulas based on age, weight, and height of individual subjects. We demonstrate that the model fits data from CO rebreathing studies when diffusion of CO into the muscle compartment is considered. The model also fits responses of HbCO to single or multiple exposures to CO lasting for a few minutes each. In addition, the model reproduces reported differences between arterial and venous HbCO levels and replicates predictions from the Coburn-Forster-Kane equation for CO exposures of a 1- to 83-h duration. In contrast to approaches based on the Coburn-Forster-Kane equation, the present model predicts uptake and distribution of CO in both vascular and tissue compartments during inhalation of either constant or variable levels of CO. Coburn-Forster-Kane equation; myoglobin; blood volume Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: E. N. Bruce, Center for Biomedical Engineering, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0070 (E-mail: ebruce{at}uky.edu ).