Osmolality case study

Zhu, M.M., A. Goyal, D.L. Rank, S.K. Gupta, T. Vanden Boom, and S.S. Lee. 2005. Effects of elevated pC02 and osmolality on growth of CHO cells and production of antibody-fusion protein Bl A case study. Biotechnol... 

Physiologists studying osmotic relationships of organisms, however, are often concerned with the total concentration of all dissolved substances, not just the concentrations of specific solutes. For expressing the total number of osmotically active particles in a solution, the concept of osmolality is commonly employed to refer to the osmotic pressure characteristic of a solution. One osmole is defined as the osmotic pressure of a 1.0 molal solution of an ideal solute. Because conditions of ideality do not pertain to the case of biological fluids, it is not possible to extrapolate precisely from chemical determinations of moles of solute per kilogram (or liter) of fluid to the osmolality of that fluid. Rather, this value must be determined empirically. 

Potential adverse effects associated with hypertonic fluid administration for circulatory insufficiency include cellular crenation and damage caused by the dramatic fluid shifts, as well as peripheral vein destruction from their high osmolality. Also, in the case of hypertonic sodium chloride solutions, there are the possibilities of neurologic damage from hypernatremia and hyperchloremic metabolic acidosis from hyperchloremia. In the limited number of studies conducted in humans to date, such adverse effects have been uncommon and apparently of little clinical importance. ... 

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