Arterial-venous differences of plasma catecholamines in man.

To investigate the relationship between forearm venous levels of catecholamines and systemic levels, simultaneous arterial and forearm vein blood samples were obtained from 14 subjects undergoing elective dental procedures and assayed with a sensitive and specific radioenzymatic assay. Baseline venous levels of norepinephrine were greater than arterial levels (305 +/- 30 pg/ml versus 221 +/- 18; +/- SEM, p less than .005). Conversely, arterial epinephrine levels were higher than venous (132 +/- 17 pg/ml versus 80 +/- 10; p less than .005). There was a significant relationship between arterial and venous levels of both norepinephrine (r = .77, p less than .01) and epinephrine (r = .67, p less than .01). The arterial-venous epinephrine difference increased from the baseline value of 44 +/- 14 pg/ml to 108 +/- 16 (p less than .005) by 3 min after subcutaneous injection of epinephrine (18 microgram), but the arterial-venous difference returned to 65 +/- 24 by 5 min after injection (p = NS versus baseline). These findings indicate that under the conditions of this study, forearm tissues produced more norepinephrine than they removed, but removed more epinephrine than they produced. Baseline venous and arterial levels were related; when epinephrine production was augmented, there was a short time lag for the venous epinephrine increase.