Calculations of intracapillary oxygen tension distributions in muscle

Characterizing the resistances to O2 transport from the erythrocyte to the mitochondrion is important to understanding potential transport limitations. A mathematical model is developed to accurately determine the effects of erythrocyte spacing (hematocrit), velocity, and capillary radius on the mass transfer coefficient. Parameters of the hamster cheek pouch retractor muscle are used in the calculations, since significant amounts of experimental physiological data and mathematical modeling are available for this muscle. Capillary hematocrit was found to have a large effect on the PO2 distribution and the intracapillary mass transfer coefficient per unit capillary area, kcap, increased by a factor of 3.7 from the lowest (H=0.25) to the highest (H=0.55) capillary hematocrits considered. Erythrocyte velocity had a relatively minor effect, with only a 2.7% increase in the mass transfer coefficient as the velocity was increased from 5 to 25 times the observed velocity in resting muscle. The capillary radius is varied by up to two standard deviations of the experimental measurements, resulting in variations in kcap that are <15% at the reference case. The magnitude of these changes increases with hematocrit. An equation to approximate the dependence of the mass transfer coefficient on hematocrit is developed for use in simulations of O2 transport from a capillary network.