Reconsidering the effect of local plasma convection in a classical model of oxygen transport in capillaries

In 1970, Aroesty and Gross investigated the influence of local plasma convection in between two successive red blood cells (RBC) in a capillary on the local oxygen transfer into tissue by combining convectional and diffusional oxygen transport. They concluded that the effect of local plasma convection on oxygen transport in the capillaries was insignificant. Here it is shown that this result was due to their choice of flat oxygen concentration profiles as boundary conditions. In fact, the plasma motion can be of importance when more realistic oxygen concentrations are used as boundary conditions. The fluxes of oxygen through the capillary wall could be up to 50% larger as compared to those of Aroesty and Gross, especially for low hematocrit values and for maximally working muscle. Since the boundary concentrations in the model of the current paper are fixed, chosen not to be influenced by the transport processes, calculations will not show to what extent motion really enhances the oxygen transport, and should be considered as rough indications of the effect of plasma motion. The results in this investigation indicate that in capillaries motion has to be taken into account under conditions of low hematocrit or high RBC velocity. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.