The ventilatory response to isocapnic progressive hypoxia and hyperoxic progressive hypercapnia in 24 diabetic patients were compared with those of sex and age matched normal control subjects. The heart rate response to hypoxia was also measured in both groups. In diabetic patients the ventilatory and heart rate responses to hypoxia were significantly lower than those in the control group (0-10 v 0-24 l/min/% fall/M2 and 05 1 v 1 27 beats/min/% fall respectively). The ventilatory response to hypercapnia was significantly higher (1 09 v 0-76 1/min/mm Hg/M2) in the diabetic patients. There was a significant correlation between the hypoxic ventilatory response and the heart rate response in diabetic patients (r = 0 56), but not in the control group (r = 0-28). In addition, both the ventilatory and the heart rate responses to hypoxia in diabetic patients had weak but significant correlations with the heart rate variation during deep breathing. It is concluded that the ventilatory and heart rate responses to hypoxia in diabetic patients are impaired, whereas the ventilatory response to hypercapnia is well preserved.

We studied the relation of oxygen delivery, mixed venous oxygenation, and pulmonary hemodynamics to prognosis in 50 randomly selected patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Cardiac catheterization was performed when the patients were clinically stable. Four years later, 27 patients (54 per cent) had died of respiratory failure. At the time of catheterization, patients who subsequently lived were similar to those who died in age, physical characteristics, and hematocrit. Nonsurvivors had significantly lower arterial and mixed venous oxygen tension and significantly higher arterial and mixed venous carbon dioxide tension. The mean pulmonary arterial pressure, pulmonary arteriolar resistance, right ventricular work, coefficient of oxygen delivery, and cardiac index did not differ between the two groups. After inhalation of 100 per cent oxygen for one hour, the mixed venous oxygen tension of nonsurvivors rose to a level equivalent to that of survivors, and their mean pulmonary arterial pressure fell significantly. These results indicate that, with respect to oxygen supply to the tissues, mixed venous oxygenation is one of the important prognostic factors in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Pulmonary and right ventricular hemodynamics measured during periods of clinical stability do not differentiate nonsurvivors from survivors.

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Minute ventilation (VE) during sustained hypoxia is not constant but begins to decline within 10-25 min in adult humans. The decrease in brain tissue PCO2 may be related to this decline in VE, because hypoxia causes an increase in brain blood flow, thus resulting in enhanced clearance of CO2 from the brain tissue. To examine the validity of this hypothesis, we measured VE and arterial and internal jugular venous blood gases simultaneously and repeatedly in 15 healthy male volunteers during progressive and subsequent sustained isocapnic hypoxia (arterial PO2 = 45 Torr) for 20 min. It was assumed that jugular venous PCO2 was an index of brain tissue PCO2. Mean VE declined significantly from the initial (16.5 l/min) to the final phase (14.1 l/min) of sustained hypoxia (P less than 0.05). Compared with the control (50.9 Torr), jugular venous PCO2 significantly decreased to 47.4 Torr at the initial phase of hypoxia but did not differ among the phases of hypoxia (47.2 Torr for the intermediate phase and 47.7 Torr for the final phase). We classified the subjects into two groups by hypoxic ventilatory response during progressive hypoxia at the mean value. The decrease in VE during sustained hypoxia was significant in the low responders (n = 9) [13.2 (initial phase) to 9.3 l/min (final phase of hypoxia), P less than 0.01], but not in the high responders (n = 6) (20.9-21.3 l/min, NS). This finding could not be explained by the change of arterial or jugular venous gases, which did not significantly change during sustained hypoxia in either group.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)

Effects of acute, progressive isocapnic hypoxia on heart rate (HR) and ventilation were determined in 31 patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and in 24 normal control subjects. There was an inverse linear relationship between heart rate and SaO2 in each subject. The slope factor (delta HR/delta SaO2) obtained from the regression line was significantly higher in the patients with COPD than in the normal control subjects (0.888 +/- 0.309 SD beats/min/% fall in SaO2 versus 0.693 +/- 0.287; p less than 0.05), whereas the ventilatory response (delta VE/delta SaO2) was not significantly different between the two groups. To elucidate factors responsible for the augmented heart rate response to hypoxia in the patients with COPD, we examined the relationships of delta HR/delta SaO2 with age, physical characteristics, pulmonary function data, and arterial blood gas data in all the subjects. A weak but significant relationship was found only between delta HR/delta SaO2 and FEV1/VC, %FEV1, RV/TLC, and %RV. Because the HR response to hypoxia correlates only with parameters that reflect the grade of airway obstruction, we believe that the enhanced HR response seen in patients with COPD is a result of the disease process in the airway and tissue, although the precise mechanism was not specified in this study.