Local hemorheological disorders during chronic inflammation

Hemorheological parameters were investigated before, during, and after the standard burn of the distal part of the rabbits' ear shell (54° C for 3 minutes). The erythrocyte aggregation was investigated with the "Georgian technique" and the local hematocrit was determined by centrifugation of blood samples from the inflammatory focus. In addition, we determined the size of the inflammatory edema in the ear shell. We found that the erythrocyte aggregability rised by 3.7 times in the venous blood flowing out from the inflammation focus while the hematocrit increased 1.6 times as compared to the microcirculation in the contralateral (control) ear shall. The thickness of this latter related to edema development increased three times. All the mentioned changes disappeared within five days after start of the experiments. We concluded that in the aseptic inflammatory foci the erythrocyte aggregability increases considerably in the microcirculation producing capillary stases and enhancing the local hematocrit. The hemorheological disorders were not spread to other parts of the circulatory bed.