Glycerol Induced Hemoglobinuric Acute Renal Failure in the Rat

Abstract

Hemoglobinuric acute renal failure occurs consistently in rats deprived of water for 24 h and injected with 50% glycerol solution (10 ml/kg) intramuscularly. Severe azotemia developed in 33% of non-dehydrated rats receiving glycerol but 44% were not azotemic, thus permitting a study of the factors which predispose to the development of acute renal failure. There was no necessary correlation between urine volume, urine osmolality, or plasma volume before injection and the development of oliguric acute renal failure, nor was the urine pH during hemoglobinuria correlated with the subsequent severity of azotemia. Plasma volume depletion was the only major difference detected between dehydrated rats which universally developed severe acute renal failure and non-dehydrated rats which were frequently spared. Small differences in plasma volume did not appear to alter the severity of renal involvement in non-dehydrated rats, however.