Body Position in Relation to Venous Air Embolism and the Associated Cardiovascular-Respiratory Changes

Hyperpolarized3He microspheres as a novel vascular signal source for MRI

“…However, long-term effects were not assessed because animals were sacrificed following the experiment. Although most injections were tolerated well, temporary bradycardia, which was observed in some of the animals (2/4), is reportedly associated with transient emboli (24,25). This idea is supported by the fact that these reactions were seen only when injecting suspensions with some aggregation present.…”

Body Position Does Not Affect the Hemodynamic Response to Venous Air Embolism in Dogs

“…They postulated that in the LLR position the right ventricular outflow tract lies inferior to the body of the right ventricle, thus displacing the air trap by the principle of air buoyancy. In additional studies they found that the survival rates in dogs receiving venous air infusions of 5.0 or 7.5 mL/kg in the SUP position were 95% and 30%, respectively (21). When dogs were receiving 7.5 mL/kg of air while lying in the LLR position at the time of infusion or were repositioned into the LLR within 1 min after the air infusion, the survival rates increased statistically significantly to 62.5% and 60.1%, respectively.…”

“…Although the pathophysiology of VAE has been well documented (9,12,14,17,(20)(21)(22)(23), there has been little investigation into the hemodynamic benefits of body positioning for the treatment of VAE. This is important, because the efficacy of this therapy has been questioned (12,17).…”

Body Position Does Not Affect the Hemodynamic Response to Venous Air Embolism in Dogs

“…We therefore chose an air dose which was not associated with as high a mortality as previously evaluated (14,22). Since the average lethal dose of air in dogs has been found to be between 3.0 and 7.5 mL/kg (21,22,(24)(25)(26), we selected a dose of 2.5 mL/ kg. A rapid rate of infusion (5 mL/s) was selected to mimic the clinical situation of massive VAE.…”