QUANTITATIVE-ANALYSIS OF INTRAHEPATIC BILE-DUCT COMPONENT IN NORMAL ADULT HUMAN LIVER AND IN PRIMARY BILIARY-CIRRHOSIS

The volume density of bile ducts in adult normal liver has been analyz ed in order to provide stereometric parameters to which refer on Perfo rming quantitative evaluations of bile duct loss in acquired liver dis eases. Five livers were studied by applying a semi-automatic image ana lysis system (ASM 68K Leitz) to histological sections. No significant differences (P > 0.10) were found for all measures and the following v alues were derived from the pooled data: (1) mean % volume of bile duc ts in liver = 0.318 +/- 0.171; (2) mean % volume of portal tracts in l iver = 4.351 +/- 2.860; (3) mean % volume of bile ducts in portal trac ts = 6.567 +/- 3.813. The parallelism of bile duct to arterial compone nts of portal tracts was also investigated and expressed as the ratio of their respective volume fractions (mean ratio = 1.72). The validity of the obtained parameters was tested by comparing them with values d etermined in five cases of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC). All PBC ca ses showed a mark ed decrease in both bile duct % volume in liver (ran ging between 0.028 and 0.057) and bile duct % volume in portal tracts (ranging between 0.673 and 0.914), as well as inversion of the bile du ct to artery volume ratio in portal tracts (ranging between 0,246 and 0.437).