The purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the results of laboratory examinations and ultrasonographic findings, especially portal vein hemodynamics in experimentally bile duct ligated dogs. Biliary obstruction was accomplished by surgically occluding the common bile duct in five dogs. All the dogs became visibly jaundiced within 24 hours after surgery. The total protein...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Although there is much known about liver diseases, some aspects remain unclear, such as the nature of the differences between the diseases observed in newborn infants and those in adults. For example, how do newborns respond to duct epithelial cell injury? Do the stellate cells in newborns respond similarly to those in adults during biliary obstruction? METHODS Ninety newb...

The effect of bile duct ligation on the quantitative and qualitative changes of bile acids in serum, liver, urine, and feces, and the concentration of cholesterol and phospholipids in serum and liver were examined in male rats. The concentration of bile acids in serum increased over 100-fold on day 5 but was lower than the 5-day level on days 10 and 15. The concentration in the liver also incre...

Decreased cardiac responsiveness to adrenergic stimulation has been observed in cholestatic liver disease, but the cause remains unclear. Previous reports have suggested that nitric oxide overproduction might have a role in cholestasis-induced bradycardia via inhibition of L-type calcium channels. In the present study, the digoxin has been used to increase cardiac Ca2+ transient in male Sprague...

Pien Tze Huang (PTH) is a mixture of several agents of traditional medicine prescribed over 600 years ago by a retired Court Physician, for conditions of liver diseases in southern China. For all these hundreds of years til the present day, PTH traditional medicine has been widely taken orally by the ethnic communities not only in China but also in the Southeast Asia as a hepatoprotective drug....

BACKGROUND Liver cirrhosis is a diffuse hepatic fibrosis, and nodule formation. The transforming growth factor-beta 1 (TGF-beta 1) and interleukin-10 (IL-10) are very important cytokines in hepatic fibrogenesis. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between the changes of the serum cytokines and morphological changes following common bile duct ligation in experimental rats. ME...

Tumor necrosis factor-related apoptosis-inducing ligand (TRAIL), a potential chemotherapeutic agent for cancer, is not thought to be hepatotoxic. We have recently demonstrated, however, that bile acids increase TRAIL-R2/DR5 expression in a human liver cell line and render these cells susceptible to TRAIL-mediated apoptosis. These data suggest TRAIL may be hepatotoxic in cholestasis. The aim of ...

Studies have been made in the rat of the elimination of 210Pb in the bile after the intravenous injection of ioo ,ug. of lead. Four groups of rats were used: in two the bile was drained by cannulation of the bile duct, and in the other two the bile flow to the duodenum was interrupted by ligation or division of the bile duct. The radioactivity of the bile, of the intestinal walls, and of the in...

BACKGROUND Suitable experimental models of gallstone pancreatitis with systemic inflammation and mortality are limited. We developed a novel murine model of duct-ligation-induced acute pancreatitis associated with multiorgan dysfunction and severe mortality. METHODS Laparotomy was done on C57/BL6 mice followed by pancreatic duct (PD) ligation, bile duct (BD) ligation without PD ligation, or s...

Because previous studies have suggested that red cell membrane sialic acid might be a determinant of survival in vivo, we examined the relationship between haemolysis, erythrocyte membrane sialic acid, and hepatic neuraminidase (sialidase) levels in experimental cholestatic jaundice in rats. Treatment of normal rat erythrocytes with neuraminidase in vitro resulted in a significant reduction in ...