The early phase of experimental acute renal failure. II. tubular leakage and the reliability of glomerular markers.

Experiments were designed to determine whether leakage of substances across the tubular epithelium, which are impermeant in the normal kidney, falsifies the measurement of glomerular filtration rate in acute renal failure. Permeability to those substances most commonly used for filtration rate determination, polyfructosan, inulin and ferrocyanide, was estimated by measuring their recoveries following perfusion through various nephron segments in haeme pigment, ischaemic and nephrotoxic models of acute renal failure. Late proximal recovery of 14C ferrocyanide was only marginally decreased compared to controls, by a maximum of 6%. Distal recovery of polyfructosan, 14C and 3H inulin were depressed somewhat more, by a maximum of 11%. Urinary recovery of 14C inulin was reduced by only 15% in kidneys showing severely restricted renal function. It is concluded that tubular leakage is not a feature of significance in the early phase of moderate acute renal failure, that ferrocyanide and inulin are reliable markers for the determination of nephron filtration rate and water reabsorption, and that the reduction in whole kidney inulin or polyfructosan clearance reflects primarily a reduction in glomerular filtration rate.