Affiliation:
1. University Departments of Surgery and Medical Physics, and Department of Nuclear Medicine, The General Infirmary, Leeds
Abstract
Abstract
Neutron activation analysis has been used to determine the total content in the body of N, K, Na, Cl, P and Ca in 25 critically ill surgical patients before and after a 14-day course of intravenous nutrition. Muscle elemental compostion was also determined in these patients at the same time as the total body analysis.
Over the 14-day period of intravenous feeding the total body contents of all the measured elements increased (2–9·7 per cent) but only the increase in K was statistically significant. Muscle chemistry suggested an intracellular K depletion which was corrected over the study period. The results of the total body multi-element analysis were interpreted to show a mean gain of 1·25 l of extracellular fluid and 0·51 l of intracellular fluid and direct measurement of total body water suggested that this interpretation was probably valid.
The first application of the technique to patients with nutritional and metabolic problems has quantified the weight gained by two body compartments during a 2-week period of intravenous nutrition. Its further application should help to solve a number of nutritional and metabolic problems in clinical surgery.
Funder
Medical Research Council Programme
Department of Medical Physics
Yorkshire Regional Health Authority
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Cited by
53 articles.
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