A fast reliable method for the measurement of intraperitoneal dextran 70, used to calculate lymphatic absorption.

The use of intraperitoneally administered dextran 70 was investigated for measurement of lymphatic absorption in CAPD patients. For this purpose a fast, highly accurate HPLC method was developed, that was not influenced by the high glucose concentration in peritoneal dialysate, nor by the inulin that was added to the dialysate for the measurement of residual volume. Pretreatment of the samples consisted of deproteinization with trichloroacetic acid, followed by incubation at 45 degrees C to hydrolyze inulin. This was followed by a further rinsing step using a Sephadex G-25 PD-10 column. The HPLC was performed on a Bio-Gel XL guard column with refractive index detection. Because of the short guard column the chromatographic analysis was only 5 minutes for one sample. With the method described lymphatic absorption rate was measured in 30 CAPD patients and was found to range from 0.1 to 3.5 mL/min, median 1.0 mL/min.