PLASMA PROTEIN CONCENTRATION AFTER INJURY — A SIMPLE COMPUTER MODEL

Publisher Summary This chapter describes a simple computer model for plasma protein concentration after injury. It has been known for many years that the concentration of several plasma proteins changes after injury. The chapter discusses the changes in albumin and two of the acute phase reactants—C-reactive protein and α-acid glycoprotein—occuring in patients after injury fracture of a long bone. In a study described in the chapter, a simple 2-compartment model was employed. A 3-compartment model is required by most experimental data for albumin in man, but preliminary calculations indicated that the introduction of a second extravascular compartment would not contribute significantly to the changes predicted by the model. An important function required in the model is the ability to vary some of the rate constants dependent on the concentration of the protein in the plasma. In the case of albumin, there is evidence that the fractional synthesis rate varies as the reciprocal of the concentration and the fractional catabolic rate is directly proportional to concentration as is the loss to the extravascular pool from plasma.