SKIN TURGOR AS A QUANTITATIVE INDEX OF DEHYDRATION IN RATS

[摘要] ADMISSIONS to hospitals in many areas of the world are still composed to a great extent of infants with severe dehydration secondary to diarrhea, vomiting, heat prostration and the like. Laboratory facilities are sometimes unavailable; frequently even when at hand, their analytic results are not returned with sufficient promptness to help in the initial therapeutic decisions. Thus, there are needed easy and at least semiquantitative methods of estimation of the extent of dehydration. Preferably these methods should be such that they can be carried out at the patient's bedside.In pediatric and medical textbooks1-3 loss of skin turgor is often mentioned as a sign of dehydration. Apparently few efforts have been made to see whether there is a quantitative correlation between changes in skin turgor and extent of water boss. In the experiments to be reported, skin turgor has been quantitatively related to the extent of dehydration in rats. The correlation has been studied in two types of deficiency state, primary water depletion with relatively small loss of solute and, alternatively, primary solute depletion with concomitant water deficiency. The results obtained suggest that a standardized clinical technique of estimation of skin turgor may be of value in assessing degrees of dehydration and fill the aforementioned need for a simple bedside index.MATERIAL AND METHODSAlbino rats weighing 230 to 310 gm were used. Two groups were studied: Group I consisted of 36 rats dehydrated for periods up to 50 hours by simple water deprivation, dry rat chow* being offered ad libitum meanwhile in order to reduce weight loss from inanition.

[学科分类] 儿科学