Blood lactate and glucose concentrations in the femoral artery and three different veins during anaesthesia of healthy laboratory pigs

Blood lactate is a parameter used for monitoring pigs during prolonged anaesthesia. Here we compared blood lactate and glucose concentrations in nine anaesthetised laboratory pigs. Seventeen of the samples originated from a liver project and 15 from a kidney project. Mean and standard deviations of arterial blood lactate and glucose were compared with values for portal, renal and femoral veins by using paired Student’s t-test, paired Wilcoxon test as well as Spearman rank-order correlation. The study showed that lactate concentration was constant whether measured in blood from the femoral artery, portal vein, renal vein or femoral vein. The study showed that the origin of the blood sampled is not important and that changes in blood lactate concentration are likely to be the same throughout the cardiovascular system in healthy pigs