Interstitial Albumin-Bound Dye Concentrations in Mice with a Protein-Rich Effusion

Abstract

Levels of intravenously injected Evans blue dye in eluates of the lung and kidney, an index of interstitial fluid albumin concentration, together with water content of these tissues and levels of serum albumin were measured in Ha-icr mice with a tumor cell-induced protein-rich peritoneal effusion. By the fourth day after the intraperitoneal injection of tumor cells, when mean serum albumin levels had fallen to 76% of control values, mean albumin bound dye concentrations in lung and kidney had decreased to 63 and 58%, respectively, of control values. By the tenth day when serum albumin levels had decreased further to 67% of control values, albumin-bound dye concentrations in the lung and kidney had decreased to 58 and 43%, respectively, of control values. During this 10-day period the water content of the lung remained unchanged whereas that of the kidney had decreased by 7%. These observations suggest that the reduction in serum albumin which results from an abnormal distribution of this protein into a nonvascular compartment is accompanied, as in other models of hypoalbuminemia, by a more than proportionate reduction in interstitial albumin concentration in the lung and kidney.