ABSTRACT
The pig is increasingly used as an experimental animal in cardiovascular research. This requires repeated and often continuous measurements of the oxygen saturation and other blood gas parameters, for which optical methods are the most suitable. Therefore it seemed worthwhile to investigate whether the absorption spectra of the common derivatives of pig haemoglobin deviated to such an extent from those of the corresponding derivatives of human HbA that appreciable errors in the application of oximetry and multicomponent analysis of haemoglobin derivatives could be expected to occur. The absorption spectra show that there is little difference in the absorptivities of deoxyhaemoglobin, oxyhaemoglobin and carboxyhaemoglobin between porcine and human adult haemoglobin. The use of sodium dithionite has been reintroduced, but only a tiny amount is added after deoxygenation by tonometry. This procedure has also been used in the study of the spectral properties of pig haemoglobin.
