THE SIGNIFICANCE OF BILE SECRETION AFTER THE TRANSPLANTATION OF LONG-PRESERVED LIVERS IN THE RAT

Although one of the simplest indicators for predicting liver viability is bile secretion, it has never been proven whether it could be a goo d index for the viability of grafts in liver transplantation after col d ischemia. The present study, conducted on male Wistar rats, was unde rtaken to determine whether bile secretion reflects the viability of l ivers which have been preserved long-term. Livers were stored for up t o 24 h in Euro-Collins (EC) or University of Wisconsin (UW) solution a t 4-degrees-C, and transplanted orthotopically. The correlation betwee n 1-week survival, bile flow, and the tissue adenosine triphosphate (A TP) level 4 h after transplantation was then investigated for each sub group. The survival rates of the animals in the UW subgroups were much higher than those in the EC subgroups. In the rats transplanted with livers preserved for 6h in EC solution (EC-6), in which 100% survival was observed, both bile flow and ATP recovered sufficiently. Conversel y, in the EC-12 group, in which only 10% survival was seen, restoratio n of bile flow, in ml/h per kg body weight, and ATP resynthesis, in mu mol/g wet weight, were severely suppressed, with levels of 1.35 +/- 1. 05 and 0.77 +/- 0.34, respectively. Moreover, in the EC-18 group, with 0% survival, neither bile flow nor ATP recovered. In the rats transpl anted with livers preserved for 18 h in UW solution (UW-18), bile flow and ATP, being 1.03 +/- 0.56 and 1.12 +/- 0.59, respectively, were mu ch higher than those in the EC-18 group. A good correlation was found between bile flow and ATP (r = 0.84). The results of this study thus l ed us to conclude that bile secretion is a reliable index for predicti ng the viability of orthotopically transplanted grafts damaged by cold ischemia.