A comparison of three radionuclide techniques for measuring blood flow to rat extremities

A detailed comparison of three radionuclide techniques to estimate blood flow was done in the rat hind limb under reduced, normal and increased blood flow. The techniques compared were the washout of intra-arterial and intra-muscular Xenon-133 and the accumulation of radioactive microspheres in the reference organ technique. There was no significant difference between the three techniques at each of the three flow states. This confirmed that the simpler I.M. Xenon technique is a useful and accurate technique in estimating low blood flow rates in small animals. It was found that the skin puncture had to be sealed after the intra-muscular injection of Xenon to obtain valid results.