ORIGINAL ARTICLES   

International Angiology 2000 June;19(2):166-70

Copyright © 2001 EDIZIONI MINERVA MEDICA

lingua: Inglese

Pathological changes of hepatic artery and portal vein, after allyl-alcohol and carbon tetrachloride administration. An experimental study

Papalambros E., Felekouras E., Tsamandas A., Sigala F., Salakou S., Tepetes K., Filis K., Milonakis M., Kourelis T., Bastounis E.

From the First Department of Surgery and Department of Histology, University of Athens Medical School Laiko General Hospital, * Department of Pathology, University of Patras Medical School, Greece

Back­ground. All­lyl-­alchool (AA) and car­bon tet­ra­chlo­ride (CC14) are known to cause per­i­to­neal and per­i­cen­tral liver necro­sis, respec­tive­ly. This study inves­ti­gates path­o­log­ical chang­es of hepat­ic ­artery and por­tal vein after simul­ta­ne­ous admin­is­tra­tion of AA and CC14 in rats.
Meth­ods. The study com­prised 130 male ­Wistar rats divid­ed ran­dom­ly into 2 ­groups: I (n=10) sham and II (n=120) AA injec­tion (intra­per­it­o­neal­ly: 0.62 mmol/kg) and rhin­o­gas­tric admin­is­tra­tion of CC14 (0.66 ml/kg, 1:1 vol­ume dilu­tion in corn oil). After injec­tion was com­plet­ed, ani­mals of group II were ­assigned in 12 cat­e­go­ries and sac­ri­ficed 2, 4, 6, 12, 18, 24, 33, 48, 57, 81, and 153 hrs after. Tis­sue was ­obtained from the left ante­ri­or lobe and the hilum of the liver, and his­to­log­ical exam­ina­tion includ­ed H&E, sil­ver methen­a­mine and van Gies­son ­stains.
­Results. Liver sec­tions from group II (AA+CC14) dem­on­strat­ed per­i­por­tal togeth­er with per­i­cen­tral necro­sis; the peak was 57 hrs after injec­tion. In all 120 cases, H&E stain ­showed evi­dence of regen­er­a­tion orig­i­nat­ed from zone 2, extend­ing to zone 1 and occa­sion­al­ly to zone 3, and accom­plished main­ly by non-necrot­ic cell pro­life­ra­tion. Sec­tions from the liver hilum ­showed throm­bo­sis of the por­tal vein, where­as the hepat­ic ­artery and its branch­es devel­oped a varie­ty of chang­es. Initial­ly (2, 4 hrs), endo­the­lial hyper­tro­phy was ­observed which was fol­lowed by focal fib­ri­noid necro­sis of the arte­ri­al wall (6 hrs). Later on (9-153 hrs) the fol­low­ing find­ings were ­present: hyper­pla­sia and non-iso­met­ric cyto­plas­mic vac­uolisa­tion of media, dis­rup­tion of the elas­tic lam­i­na, aggre­ga­tion of foam cells and mac­ro­phag­es in inti­ma, media, and focal­ly in adven­ti­tia of hepat­ic ­artery; and lym­pho­cyt­ic inflam­ma­tion of inti­mal and per­i­ad­ven­ti­tial area. In 2 cases (153 hrs) hepat­ic ­artery throm­bo­sis was ­present.
Con­clu­sions. Addi­tion­ally to liver paren­chy­mal chang­es, simul­ta­ne­ous admin­is­tra­tion of allyl-alco­hol and car­bon tet­ra­chlo­ride in rats ­results to vas­cu­lar chang­es main­ly in the hepat­ic ­artery and its branch­es. Dur­ing liver paren­chy­mal regen­er­a­tion, the hepat­ic ­artery and its branch­es devel­op micro­scop­ic fea­tures that mor­pho­log­i­cal­ly resem­ble those of ath­ero­scler­o­sis. These chang­es may ­result in hepat­ic ­artery throm­bo­sis and or obstruc­tion.