Evaluation of perilla ketone-induced unilateral lung injury using external gamma scanning.

We used a modified external gamma scanning technique to quantitate right and left lung permeability changes to iodinated sheep albumin before and after perilla ketone (PK)-mediated unilateral lung injury in seven anesthetized sheep. Three portable gamma scintillation probes containing 2-in. NaI crystals detected radioactivities of 51Cr-labeled red blood cells and 125I-labeled albumin over the right and left lungs and blood, respectively. Radioactivities were monitored for 1 h before and 3 h after infusion of 25 mg/kg PK into a single lung. Calculation of normalized slope index (NSI) (Roselli and Riddle, J. Appl. Physiol. 67: 2343-2350, 1989) over the 30-min interval before PK and over the 60- to 90-min interval after PK for each lung revealed a four- to five-fold NSI increase in lungs receiving PK (0.00237 +/- 0.00065 to 0.0109 +/- 0.0016 min-1) and no increase in contralateral control lungs (0.00214 +/- 0.00065 to 0.00201 +/- 0.00032 min-1). Observed changes in NSI were consistent with postmortem evaluations of each lung. Lungs receiving PK had significantly higher wet-to-dry lung weight ratios and extravascular lung water volumes than contralateral control lungs. Measured bloodless wet-to-dry lung weight ratios were 5.68 +/- 0.39 and 3.27 +/- 0.27 (P < 0.05) for PK and control lungs, respectively.