Permeation of inert gases through human skin: modeling the effect of skin blood flow

We present an analytic method for determining the effects of skin perfusion--vasculature and flow rates--on the flux of inert gases through human skin. We systematically specify the underlying blood flow and examine the resulting fluxes of several gases, allowing for the appropriate tissue resistances. For physiological flows, the stratum corneum has an effect equivalent to a series resistance. Helium flux at low total flow depends primarily on subdermal perfusion, but at higher flow, middermal and subpapillary effects become important. The fluxes of less permeable gases, such as argon and xenon, depend on middermal and subpapillary flow at lower total flows. From any single measurement of gas flux, it is difficult to establish an unambiguous value for the underlying blood flow, but the simultaneous measurement of different gases narrows the range of plausible conditions.