Figure 5. Pressure–volume behaviour of submesothelial diaphragmatic lymphatics.

A, time course of P_lymph from the pre-injection value at t = 0 and during sequential injections of 4.6 nl of lissamine green saline solution. At each injection P_lymph sharply increases by ΔP_lymph-peak to attain a peak value followed by a slower P_lymph decay to pre-injection values (modified from Moriondo et al. 2010). B, relationships obtained by pooling data from several measurements in different diaphragmatic submesothelial vessels, where the cumulative injected volume, V_injected, is plotted as a function of ΔP_lymph-peak. The data points appear distributed in two distinct populations characterized by a significantly (P < 0.05) different C_lymph amounting to 6.7 nl mmHg⁻¹ (high compliance, H-C_lymph) and 1.5 nl mmHg⁻¹ (low compliance, L-C_lymph), respectively (modified from Moriondo et al. 2010).