The study was approved by the Regional Ethical Board in Stockholm (#2011/477), and was performed at the Karolinska University Hospital Huddinge between May and September 2011, in compliance with Good Clinical Practice and in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. The study was monitored by the Karolinska Trial Alliance. All patients gave written informed consent after being informed orally and in writing about the investigational procedure and the possible risks involved.
Patients
Patients (n = 12) scheduled for major pancreatic (n = 9) or oesophageal surgery (n = 3) were recruited. One patient was excluded from further analysis because of an inoperable tumor and therefore a short surgical procedure, and one patient because exogenous albumin was given as colloid during surgery due to elevated plasma creatinine (presented as a case report, see Additional file
1: Text S1 and Additional file
2: Figure S1). The remaining 10 patients (2 females) were aged 65.7 ± 5.6 years and had a body mass index of 24.0 ± 2.3 kg/m
2. The patients had a number of co-morbidities apart from their tumors: hypertension 4, diabetes mellitus 3, previous myocardial infarction 1, previous chemotherapy 2, congestive heart failure 2, atrial fibrillation 2, hypothyreosis 2, and one each of pancreatitis, trachea-esophageal fistula, multiple myeloma, multiple sclerosis, and deep venous thrombosis. The attending anesthesiologist graded preoperative health according to the American Society of Anesthesiologists’ (ASA) classification of physical health, all within grade II (n = 6) or III (n = 4). Two patients had a preoperative body weight loss of –6.8 and –10.0 kg over 1 and 2 months, respectively, corresponding to a weight loss of more than 10 % and a nutritional risk score of five [
7]. The body weight of the remaining eight subjects differed by –0.6 kg (–1.8 to 0.5) from values 1–2 months preoperatively.
Study procedure
P-alb, blood hematocrit (B-Htc), and blood hemoglobin (B-Hb) were measured 15 times over 3 days according to a predefined protocol. The first sample was taken as soon as an arterial line was established, then after induction of anesthesia, at the start of surgery, after 1 h of surgery, at the end of resection, at the start of reconstruction, at the end of surgery, 1, 2 and 3 h after surgery, on postoperative day 1 at 8 a.m., 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., on postoperative day 2 at 8 a.m., and on postoperative day 3 at 8 a.m.. Losses of albumin and hemoglobin due to bleeding, by suction and sponges, and postoperatively by drains were assessed by weighing and measurement of hemoglobin and albumin content. Losses of albumin in urine were considered as insignificant. Data from all intravenous infusions were collected. B-Hb was also measured in transfused donor blood and P-alb in donor plasma.
Anesthesia was performed according to the unit routines at the time of the study. Briefly, all patients had an arterial line, central venous catheter, thoracic epidural block with bupivacaine, fentanyl and epinephrine, and general anesthesia that after induction was maintained by sevoflurane in oxygenated air at an age-corrected minimal alveolar concentration of 0.8. Ventilation was adjusted to achieve normocapnia based on blood gas analyses. Intravenous fluids comprised starch (2 mL/kg/h; Volulyte®; Fresenius Kabi, Uppsala, Sweden), acetated Ringer’s solution (2 mL/kg/h), and glucose (25 mg/mL, 1 mL/kg/h) according to the unit’s routine. In this pragmatic study, bleeding was treated at the discretion of the attending anesthesiologist.
P-alb was analyzed by the Study Center at the Karolinska University Laboratory using nephelometry with a coefficient of variation of 1.9 % (IMMAGE® 800; Beckman Coulter AB, Bromma, Sweden), whereas B-Hb and B-Hct were assessed on a blood gas analyzer (ABL800 FLEX; Radiometer Medical ApS, Brønshøj, Denmark) at the Department of Anaesthesia.
Calculations of mass balance
Baseline blood volume (BV) was calculated anthropometrically from gender and body size [
8], and plasma volume (PV) was derived by:
$$ \mathrm{P}\mathrm{V}=\left(1{\textstyle\ \hbox{--}}\mathrm{B}{\textstyle \hbox{-}}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{t}\times 0.91\right)\times \mathrm{B}\mathrm{V} $$
(1)
The f-ratio 0.91 represents the ratio between total body hematocrit and large vessel B-Hct. The intravascular hemoglobin mass (MHb) is then:
$$ \mathrm{M}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{b} = \mathrm{B}\mathrm{V} \times \mathrm{B}\hbox{-} \mathrm{H}\mathrm{b} $$
(2)
By combining (1) and (2) we achieve:
$$ \mathrm{P}\mathrm{V}=\left(1{\textstyle \hbox{--}}\mathrm{B}{\textstyle \hbox{-}}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{t}\times 0.91\right)\times \mathrm{M}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{b}/\mathrm{B}{\textstyle \hbox{-}}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{b} $$
(3)
Intravascular albumin mass (IAM) can be similarly calculated by:
$$ \mathrm{I}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{M} = \mathrm{P}\mathrm{V} \times \mathrm{P}\hbox{-} \mathrm{alb} $$
(4)
Equations 1–4 are valid at all time points. When considering consecutive time points (
n + 1 versus
n) in the predefined protocol, MHb at time
n + 1 can be calculated from the value at time
n and measured loss and gain of hemoglobin in that time interval according to:
$$ {{\mathrm{MHb}}_{\mathrm{n}}}_{+1}={\mathrm{MHb}}_{\mathrm{n}}{\textstyle\ \hbox{--}}\mathrm{b}\mathrm{leeding}\mathrm{volume}\times \mathrm{mean}\mathrm{B}{\textstyle \hbox{-}}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{b}+\mathrm{transfusion}\mathrm{of}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{b} $$
(5)
When this MHb
n+1 from equation (5) is inserted into equation (3) together with B-Hb
n+1 and B-Hct
n+1 it is possible to calculate PV
n+1. This value can be inserted into equation (4) together with P-alb
n+1 generating IAM
n+1, representing albumin mass at time point
n + 1 related only to B-Hb and B-Hct and measured loss and gain of hemoglobin. IAM’ represents another way to assess mass balance of albumin—directly by considering losses and gains of albumin over time. The apostrophe denotes that these IAM’ values are obtained differently. Gains are estimated from albumin content in plasma transfusions and albumin infusions, losses from measurement of albumin in drains or from estimated bleeding in suction bottles and sponges according to:
$$ \mathrm{Albumin}\mathrm{loss}=\mathrm{bleeding}\mathrm{volume}\times \mathrm{mean}\mathrm{P}{\textstyle \hbox{-}}\mathrm{alb}\times \left(1{\textstyle \hbox{--}}\mathrm{meanB}{\textstyle \hbox{-}}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{c}\mathrm{t}\right) $$
(6)
The cumulative difference between these two measures over time is presented in this paper as the cumulative perioperative albumin shift, supposedly to the extracellular space:
$$ \mathrm{Cumulative}\mathrm{perioperative}\mathrm{albumin}\mathrm{shift}=\mathrm{I}\mathrm{A}{\mathrm{M}}^{\prime }{\textstyle \hbox{--}}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{A}\mathrm{M} $$
(7)
Finally, the fractional plasma volume dilution at time
n (fPVdil
n
) is then related to the baseline plasma volume PV
0 according to:
$$ {\mathrm{fPVdil}}_n = {\mathrm{PV}}_n/{\mathrm{PV}}_0 $$
(8)
Similar fPVdil calculations serve as in-data in volume kinetic modelling [
9].
Statistics
Data are presented as mean ± standard deviation or median (range) as appropriate according to Sharpio Wilk’s W test of normality. Statistical evaluation was performed by repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) followed by adjustment by Dunnett’s multiple comparison test when all time points were compared to baseline. When consecutive data time points were compared by ANOVA, Bonferroni correction was used to compensate for multiple comparisons. Friedman’s analysis of variance followed by Dunn’s correction for multiple testing versus baseline was used for nonparametric data. The software GraphPad Prism 5 was used for statistical calculations.
In a previous study of similar patients investigated under the same unit routines, the drop in P-alb from start of surgery to the second postoperative day was –11.5 ± 2.6 g/L [
6]. This large and consistent drop, corresponding to an effect size of 4.4 (the difference divided by the standard deviation of the difference), made it likely that sufficient information of the time course would be obtained with a sample size of 10.