Comparison of measurement of effective renal plasma flow by single plasma sample and plasma disappearance slope/volume methods.

Numerous simplified methods for the estimation of ERPF have described, including the so-called slope/intercept (SI) methods, based on the analysis of the slope of certain segments of the 131I-OIH plasma disappearance curve and its y-axis intercept, and the single sample (SS) clearance method, based on theoretical volumes of OIH distribution at some fixed time after injection. Using ERPFs estimated from compartment analysis of the entire 60-min plasma disappearance curve, we have compared the errors of data calculated from use of eight SI methods made at various times along the disappearance curve with that from the optimum SS curve. The errors obtained from the SS method were approximately 50% less than those obtained from the SI methods. The errors of the SI methods are greater at both ends of the 60-min plasma curve than when samples are drawn near the mid-time. The SS method appears to be the method of choice for the estimation of ERPF using single injection techniques.