[Clinical study on arterio-venous differences in clinical biochemical assay for infants and children at induction of general anesthesia (Enflurane-N2-O-O2). First report: liver function tests].

The arterial blood is often drawn during general anesthesia to measure many biochemical parameters, and, outside the operative period, those parameters are measured mainly in the venous blood. In this way, the A-V differences (the differences between the data from the arterial blood and those from the venous blood) will be found. However, there are few reports about the A-V difference in infants and children. The purpose of this investigation was to compare the arterial blood data with the venous data at the induction of general anesthesia (Enflurane-N2O-O2). In this report, Plasma total bilirubin concentration (by the Michaëlson method), GOT activity, GPT activity (by the Karmen method), gamma-GTP activity (by the gamma-glutamyl CPA substrate method) and pseudocholinesterase activity (by the Shibata-Takahashi method) were measured with both the arterial (from the radial Artery) and the venous samples (from the saphena Magna), in 60 cases of infants and children who had no systemic disease. They were divided into three groups according to age. (Group I: three months old to one year old, Group II: one year old to three years old, and Group III: three years old to six years old.) Each group consisted of 20 patients. The difference and correlation coefficients between arterial and venous measurements were analysed with the paired t-test and correlation analysis Fs = [r2(n-2)/(1-r2)]1/2. Additionally, the data was analysed with a one dimensional analysis for all Groups. In the results, the A-V difference was so small that the conclusion was reached that in these liver function tests there would be no problem in regarding arterial measurements as venous measurements.