Viscous and inertial fractions of total perfusion energy dissipation in the coronary circulation of the in situ perfused dog heart.

The effects of changes in viscosity on pressure flow relations in the in situ perfused left circumflex coronary artery were studied in open chest dogs. Vascular reactivity was abolished by maximal pharmacological coronary dilatation. Blood and suspensions of red cells (hematocrit 8-14%) in dextran solutions were used as perfusates. Total perfusion energy dissipation, represented by perfusion pressure drop across the perfused vascular bed, can be separated into a viscous and an inertial fraction: P = Pvisc + Pinert. Perfusing the heart with approximately Newtonian fluids of different viscosities enabled us to compute the amount of the inertial fraction of total perfusion pressure dissipation. At constant viscosity, the inertial fraction increased with flow rate. However, the rise of the inertial fraction due to reduced viscosity at a constant perfusion pressure was much more pronounced. Variations of perfusion pressure and viscosity of the perfusates between 70 to 130 mm Hg and 1.2-3.2 cP, respectively, resulted in inertial perfusion pressure dissipation between 16 and 54%. This inertial pressure drop may become a noteworthy factor under conditions of low whole blood viscosity (e.g. anemia or therapeutical hemodilution.