Relation of blood-free to blood-inclusive postmortem lung water measurements in sheep

Our purpose was to see if the postmortem weight ratio of extravascular lung water to blood-free dry lung (blood-free ratio) was related to similar ratios in blood-inclusive lung and in blood. We developed linear regressions of blood-free ratio on ratios for blood-inclusive lung and blood together and for blood-inclusive lung alone for 73 sheep studied under 11 different protocols and for two subgroups of sheep, one with plasma space expansion and the other without expansion. The relation of ratios of blood-free to blood-inclusive lungs was different between the two subgroups. Although all regressions were highly correlated, the fits of the blood-free ratio on ratios for blood-inclusive lung and blood together were better than for blood-inclusive lung alone. The mean error of prediction of extravascular lung water for all sheep was significantly less for the regression of blood-free ratio on ratios for blood and blood-inclusive lung together (11 g) than for blood-inclusive lung alone (18 g). This study shows that weights of lung homogenate and blood samples before and after simple oven drying can be used to provide accurate inexpensive estimates of postmortem extravascular lung water.