Abstract
In recent years there has been considerable clinical interest in the efficacy of both hypervolemic hemodilution [6, 7, 20] and isovolemic hemodilution [9, 26] in the prevention or treatment of cerebral ischemia. There has also been considerable experimental work in this area, particularly with hypervolemic hemodilution [24, 25]. A consistent problem encountered in the experimental work, however, has been the fact that hypervolemia increases intracranial pressure [25] and results in cardiac overloading. This limits the applicability of hypervolemic hemodilution, particularly in patients with increased intracranial pressure and in elderly stroke patients who frequently have limited cardiac reserve.