Functional residual capacity and body position in the dog

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Abstract
Resting lung volumes in the supine position (FRCs) were determined by N2 washout method in 67 dogs under pentobarbital anesthesia and computed in ml/kg body weight (BW). In 21 other dogs, FRCs and the change in FRC from the supine to upright positions (deltaFRC) were determined; these lung volumes were expressed in ml/kg BW and in percentage of TLC40 (lung volume at 40 cmH2O positive-pressure inflation). It was found that a) FRCs averaged 38.6 plus or minus 8.2 and 42 plus or minus 5.9 ml/kg BW in the two groups of dogs; b) deltaFRC averaged 23 plus or minus 4 ml/kg BW resulted in large data dispersion, a large coefficient of variation (CV) and a poor correlation (r) of lung volume to BW; D) on the contrary, marked uniformity of FRCs and FRCu (upright FRC) was obtained by expressing the resting lung volumes in %TLC40, allowing an accurate prediction of FRC from the inspiratory capacity (IC). Relationship of FRCu to TLC was comparable to human data reported in the literature. FRCs (%TLC40) was smaller than values previously reported for awake human subjects, probably due to the FRCs reduction in our dogs by anesthesia.