What are the reference values for blood flow to femur, fibula and
tibia in the human?

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Clarification of Question by docholiday-ga on 02 Aug 2002 16:18 PDT

Please provide values in ml/min.

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Request for Question Clarification by tehuti-ga on 02 Aug 2002 19:46 PDT

These are the only data I have been able to find:

Ref 1. Blood flow in the femoral head in healthy adult males aged
20-78 yr was  1.68-6.47 ml/min/100 g (mean +/- SD: 3.52 +/- 1.2), with
the flow decreasing significantly with age.

Ref  2. Between the ages of 20 and 55 the blood flow in the proximal
femur of healthy men and women was 8.3 +/- 1.4 ml/min/100 g,
decreasing thereafter in older patients.


The references are from PubMed
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi  with a query of “blood
flow” + bone, and limited to human studies.

1. Ann Nucl Med 2001 Jun; Volume15(no. 3):231-235 
Blood flow and blood volume in the femoral heads of healthy adults
according to age: measurement with positron emission tomography (PET).
Kubo T, Kimori K, Nakamura F, Inoue S, Fujioka M, Ueshima K, Hirasawa
Y, Ushijima Y, Nishimura T.
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Kyoto Prefectural University of
Medicine, Japan

2. Journal of Nuclear Medicine 1981 Nov; Volume 22(no. 11):966-972   
The effect of age on blood flow in the proximal femur in man.
Lahtinen T, Alhava EM, Karjalainen P, Romppanen T.

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Clarification of Question by docholiday-ga on 02 Aug 2002 20:56 PDT

I, too, have searched MEDLINE, with little success.  I am looking for
"normal" blood flow values to the femur, tibia, and fibula, expressed
in ml/min (not ml/min/100 gram).  I have discovered that the blood
flow to the "average" human leg is roughly 344 ml/min., but just how
much of that goes to the femur, tibia, anfd fibula; that's what I
need.  Good luck, and I wish you more success than I have had thusfar.
 Regards,  Doc

I too, had done a thorough search before tehuti and found no
information as specific as what you are after.  If you have searched
medline, than perhaps you already know abou the experimental
measurement techniques in animals.  I found per-bone specifics for
rabbits, piglets and mice.  I concluded that perhaps existing
techniques were not far enough along in terms of non-invasiveness and
safety to be performed on humans.  e.g. ome of the measurements on
animals were collected from post-mortem examination.  One veterinary
source, related to canines, discussed why measuring blood flow to bone
was so difficult.

I added this comment to let you know that two of us have done thorough
searches on your question.

Regards,

historybuff