Methodology to assess the oxygen concentration of red cells and stroma-free hemoglobin solutions.

Stroma-free hemoglobin (SFH) solution is an acellular oxygen carrier under development as a temporary red blood cell (rbc) substitute. SFH will be of value if it contributes to oxygen loading (delivery) and unloading (consumption). If there is no interaction between red cell hemoglobin and SFH, then the composite oxygen dissociation curve for whole blood (WB) can be written as: SWB = rSSFH + (1 - r) Srbc, where S is the fractional saturation, and r is the SFH/WB hemoglobin ratio. This composite whole-blood curve was compared with the calculated curve, and the root mean square difference was 0.9%. Direct and indirect methods of measuring oxygen concentration ([O2]) of whole blood or plasma were compared. The regression line was [O2]indirect = 0.995 [O2]direct + 0.07 (r = 0.995, N = 16, p less than .01). The adequacy of anaerobic separation of plasma was evaluated by measuring the changes in PO2 and PCO2. The PO2 increased by less than 2 torr and the PCO2 decreased by less than 1 torr during in vitro tests. Both the direct and indirect methodology yielded consistent [O2] values for each carrier.