Regional differences in erythrocyte transit in normal lungs.

We measured regional blood volume and flow in the lungs of nine mongrel dogs. The time taken for the erythrocytes to transit through individual lung regions was calculated from the relationship t = V/Q, where V is blood volume and Q is flow. The data show that the total pulmonary blood volume was 82 +/- 6 ml and that the average time spent in the pulmonary vascular bed was 2.86 +/- 0.31 s. The frequency distribution of the transit times ranged from 0.41 to 6 s in the experiment with the shortest mean transit (1.62 s) and from 0.9 to greater than 20 s in the experiment with the longest mean transit time (4.6 s). The regional data show that the longer transit times were in the upper lung and that expansion of the blood volume as flow increased down the lung prevented an excessive shortening of the transit time. We conclude that increasing regional blood flow is associated with an expansion of regional blood volumes so that the transit times remain relatively constant.