Summary
Portacaval shunt operation in rats results in an atrophy of the liver and a variety of metabolic disturbances, resembling those ones seen in man after a shunt operation for the relief of portal hypertension. An approach is made to correlate biochemical alterations, reported in the literature elsewhere, to quantitatively assessed morphological changes. 6 weeks after an end-to-side portacaval shunt operation the livers in 4 operated animals and 4 sham-operated control rats where examined with stereological methods, using stratified random sampling, systemic sampling, and multiple stage sampling procedures. The remarkable loss of liver volumes in the operated rats compared to the controls (2.11 ± 0,23; 3.22 ± 0.19 cm3/ 100 g b.w.) was mainly due to an atrophy of the hepatocytes, their nuclei sharing only little to this atrophy. The most pronounced was the reduction of the smooth endoplasmatic reticulum (volume: 0.172 ± 0.026; 0.387 ± 0.038 cm3/100 g; surface: 4.16 ± 0.078; 10.17 ± 1.36 m2/100 g b.w.). The atrophy of the rough endoplasmatic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, and microbodies were less pronounced.
The metabolic phenomena seen in rats after an portacaval shunt, which are characterized by the reduction of the activity of the microsomal enzyme system, correlate well to the atrophy of the smooth endoplasmatic reticulum of the hepatocytes, assessed by stereometrical methods in this study.
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Terlunen, E., Altenähr, E., Becker, K. et al. Liver atrophy following portacaval shunt in normal rats —a morphometric study—. Res. Exp. Med. 170, 133–142 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01851384
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01851384