Oxygen diffusion in tissue preparations with Michaelis-Menten kinetics

A model is introduced for the oxygen consumption in thin vital tissue preparation. The steady uptake kinetics is modelled by a Michaelis-Menten form and for this case it proved that the resulting boundary value problem admits a unique solution for those parameter ranges typical of related physiological experiments. This solution is compared with Otto Warburg's hyperoxia model and with a hypoxia model. Useful and easily computed approximations are derived for the minimum oxygen supply across the tissue and some numerical solutions of the governing equations are discussed. (C) 1997 Academic Press Limited.