Fig. 6.

PHMs rapidly increase blood oxygen content following i.v. injection. (A and B) Bolus infusions of oxygen-loaded PHMs transiently increased the PvO₂ (A) in a dose dependent manner (B). Infusion of oxygen-loaded PHMs [1% and 2% (wt/wt)] delivered significantly more oxygen gas than oxygen-saturated Plasma-Lyte A alone (P = 0.001 and 0.0084, respectively). (C and D) The cardiac index (CI) (C) transiently increased while the pulmonary vascular resistance (PVR) (D) decreased following infusion of oxygen-saturated Plasma-Lyte A or oxygen-loaded PHMs [1% and 2% (wt/wt)]. (E) PHMs were not hemolytic when incubated with freshly isolated hRBCs for up to 1 h at PHM concentrations of up to 20 mg/mL. Data points on all plots represent the mean ± SEM.