A Lumped-Parameter Subject-Specific Model of Blood Volume Response to Fluid Infusion

This paper presents a lumped-parameter model that can reproduce blood volume response to fluid infusion. The model represents the fluid shift between the intravascular and interstitial compartments as the output of a hypothetical feedback controller that regulates the ratio between the volume changes in the intravascular and interstitial fluid at a target value (called “target volume ratio”). The model is characterized by only three parameters: the target volume ratio, feedback gain (specifying the speed of fluid shift), and initial blood volume. This model can obviate the need to incorporate complex mechanisms involved in the fluid shift in reproducing blood volume response to fluid infusion. The ability of the model to reproduce real-world blood volume response to fluid infusion was evaluated by fitting it to a series of data reported in the literature. The model reproduced the data accurately with average error and root-mean-squared error (RMSE) of 0.6 and 9.5% across crystalloid and colloid fluids when normalized by the underlying responses. Further, the parameters derived for the model showed physiologically plausible behaviors. It was concluded that this simple model may accurately reproduce a variety of blood volume responses to fluid infusion throughout different physiological states by fitting three parameters to a given dataset. This offers a tool that can quantify the fluid shift in a dataset given the measured fractional blood volumes.