Venous-to-Arterial Shunt Blood shunt refer to blood which enters the arterial system without going through the ventilated areas of lung. Its caused by passing blood through the non-ventilated area of the lung (portion without alveoli i.e. bronchial artery blood) and the blood drained directly from the coronary venous into the cavity of the left ventricle through the Thebesian veins. The result is the lower Po2 in arterial blood. This means that arterial blood can never reach 100% O2 even the air is 100% O2 Shunt blood causes hypoventilation, the condition which the Po2 in blood decreased and tissues are not getting enough O2 for metabolism (See West page 56 for image)
Sample Problems:
What causes blood shunt and what effect does it have?
Answers:
Shunt is caused by blood enters the arterial system without getting re-oxygenated at the lung. It decrease the oxygen concentration in arterial blood and therefore causes hypoventilation.
For more information on this topic, please refer to West , page 55.
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BME 403 Pages maintained by the T.A., Douglas Miles.