Studies on hemorheology as causative factors of tissue hypoxia in renal failure

In the present study, we determined erythrocyte 2, 3-diphosphoglycerate (2, 3-DPG), hemoglobin Al (HbAl), oxygen dissociation curve (ODC), erythrocyte defor-mability, erythrocyte osmotic fragility and blood viscosity, using washed erythrocytes for the purpose of investigating causative factors of tissue hypoxia in patients with renal failure. Erythrocyte 2, 3-D and HbAI levels in uremic subjects, regardless of hemodial-ysis, were higher than those in normal subjects. The ODC for erythrocytes showed a right shift in uremic patients before heodial-ysis treatment. However, the ODC in patients with renal failure showed a left shift after hemodialysis. A decreased erythrocyte deformability and an erythrocyte osmotic fragility shifted to the yperosotic side were observed in uremic patients. Moreover, blood viscosity in non-hemodialysis uremic subjects was high at the shear rate of 334sec-1 as compared with that in normal subjects. The above data suggest that these factors are important in developing tissue hypoxia in the treatment of hemodialysis of uremic patients.