Graphic Presentation of blood gas data

Abstract

In the practise of anaesthesiology and intensive medicine, acid-base disturbances are everyday occurrences. Especially in this field, one frequently meets problems of breath insufficiency and metabolic derangements, and one is forced to intervene in partial functions of the organism. Often the task arises here of taking over externally defunct control functions, in order to maintain the acid-base homeostasis. Disturbances in the acid-base content and gas exchange are frequently to be found in the perioperative patient care of a large hospital. Whilst during an operation, disturbances of a respiratory kind as a consequence of an inadequate respiration pattern are more common, and post operative, the respiratory acidosis is more to the fore, due to anaesthesia overhang, or when breathing is limited because of pain, during the intensive therapeutic treatment, the whole spectrum of acid-base disturbances can be observed. Apart from restrictive and obstructive lung changes, it is above all, inhomogenous ventilation-perfusion conditions through atelectatic lung areas or diffusion disturbances which are responsible for the infringements of the gas exchange of the lungs. They go hand in hand with an increase of the intrapulmonary shunt volume, before lung changes can be detected by means of stethoscope or x-rays. A pre-requisite of the precise interpretation of blood gas data is an understanding of the complex physiological processes which acid-base disturbances induce in the organism, and it is an unalterable condition for their specific treatment. The beginner especially often has difficulties in the interpretation of the acid-base derangements and their underlying mechanisms.