Blood Flow through Human Adipose Tissue Determined with Radioactive Xenon

Abstract The disappearance rate of an injected depot of radioactive Xenon dissolved in saline has been used to measure the blood flow through human adipose tissue according to the tissue clearance principle of Kety. The technical details regarding the injection and radioactivity measurement are described and the theoretical implications of the use of local clearance methods in general are discussed. The study comprised 69 examinations of 17 men and 38 women in various states of nutrition. The average blood flow, as measured in the abdominal fatty tissue, was 2.6 ml/100 g. min with a standard deviation of 1.7, and it was found to decrease significantly with increasing thickness of the fatty tissue.