A compartmental model of oxygen transport derived from a distributed model: treatment of convective and oxygen dissociation properties

The authors derive a compartmental model for oxygen transport in vascular blood which is suitable for both steady and time-varying analysis, and which can be used with any kind of oxygen dissociation function. The derivation focuses on the establishment of expressions for the lumped convective term and the lumped oxygen dissociation function. Results of the simulation show that the value of the lumped convective term in the present model is significantly larger than that found in previously published models, and that the value computed from the present lumped oxygen dissociation function, while not significantly different under normal or mildly hypoxic conditions from that used in the other models, becomes significantly larger under severe hypoxia.