Appearance of Protein Tagged with Radioactive Iodine in Thoracic Duct Lymph.

Abstract

Canine and human protein tagged with radioactive iodine (I131) was injd. intraven. into dogs and the rapidity with which it appeared in thoracic duct lymph measured. The human protein appeared in greater concn. then the canine protein during the 2 hr. period of observation. Ten min. following the intraven. injn. of activated canine protein the avg. concn. of radioactive protein in the thoracic duct lymph was 1.5% of the concn. of the protein in the blood stream. This low percentage suggests that the use of radioactive protein for the detn. of plasma volumes is not significantly affected by the diffusion of protein into thoracic duct lymph.