ZINC SUPPLEMENTATION IN EXPERIMENTAL LIVER-CIRRHOSIS - A MORPHOLOGICAL, STRUCTURAL AND ULTRASTRUCTURAL-STUDY

Zinc treatment in liver cirrhosis is known to prevent a number of clin ical symptoms. Previous studies have also indicated that Zn has a prot ective effect on the development of the clinical, biochemical and morp hological manifestations of hepatic injury if administered simultaneou sly with the noxious agent. In this study, the protective effects of z inc treatment against the development of liver cirrhosis have been tes ted in cirrhotic rats treated by intragastric administration of CCl4. The development of morphological lesions has been investigated by mean s of standardized and comparable techniques, LM, TEM, SEM, microvascul ar casts and measurements of liver collagen content by colorimetric de termination in paraffin embedded sections. LM and EM observations show ed typical morphological features of cirrhosis in all CCl4 treated rat s. In the same group of animals, the microsvascular casts showed the d evelopment of the typical 'perinodular' branching and the various anas tomoses of pre and post-sinusoidal vessels. Colorimetric evaluation ha s shown a significant increase in collagen content after CCl4 treatmen t. Qualitative and quantitative data of livers of CCl4 treated rats su pplemented or not with zinc were significantly similar. In conclusion, zinc treatment influences biochemical parameters, but not the morphol ogy of liver cirrhosis.