Abstract
Extracorporeal circulation was performed in 14 beagle dogs without anticoagulant with blood flow of 150ml/min for 60min. In 7 dogs, 2.5ml of tricaprilin (TC) was floated over the blood in the venous line air trap chamber and the other 7 dogswere used as a control without TC. Activated clotting time (ACT) and pressure in the circuit were measured and clotting in the chamber and dialyzer was observed at each 20min. In 8 dialysis patients, TC was floated in the chamber and its preventive effect to clotting was studied. Thrombin-ATIII complex (TAT) in the plasma was measured before and after a dialysis with or without TC. In dogs, ACT decreased by extracorporeal circulation in control, but was almost constant in TC group. Clotting observed at the blood-air interface in control was not formed in TC group. In patients using TC, clot formation in the chamber was prevented and TAT generation by dialysis was less in 4 of the 5 patients compared to control. In conclusion, clotting in the chamber was prevented by separating blood from air probably through suppression of thrombin generation at the blood-air interface.
