Abstract
In an effort to determine whether or not a consistent significant damage in the liver is produced by intestinal obstruction and strangulation of the intestine, we produced these 2 conditions experimentally in 28 dogs by severing the intestine under aseptic technique and closing the ends, and by constriction of a loop (varying from 2 inches to 12 inches in length) of intestine so that the lumen of the bowel and the entire blood supply were obstructed, respectively. The animals with simple obstruction lived for a variable length of time or were killed, 1 to 12 days after operation. This variability introduces an error since the ones killed may have lived a day or 2 longer if left to die spontaneously. When a strangulation was produced, death took place in 24 to 48 hours with considerably more uniformity, depending directly upon the length of the strangulated loop.
There are few and conflicting reports on the effect of intestinal obstruction on the liver, Colp and Louria 1 , Seulberger 2 , Trinchera 3 .
A definite and the most significant histological effect produced in the livers of dogs with simple intestinal obstruction consisted of central necrosis of the cells of the liver lobules with loss of nuclei and fragmentation of the cells. This change, although observed in nearly all animals in a mild form, was present to a marked degree in 54% of the dogs, and was occasionally present (11%) to the extent commonly seen following certain fatal toxemias. A much more frequent change, but with questionable significance, was a widening of the sinusoidal spaces and thinning of the hepatic cells into cords of cells which had apparently retained their vitality. Occasionally the large sinusoidal spaces intervening between these cords of cells were filled with blood.
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