The effects of ethanol on intrahepatic vasoconstriction

✍ Scribed by Hector Orrego; Frederick J. Carmichael; Masahide Oshita; Yoshiyuki Takei; Sunao Kawano; Hideyuki Fusamoto; Takenobu Kamada

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1993
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 404 KB
• Volume: 18
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0270-9139
• DOI: 10.1002/hep.1840180240

✦ Synopsis

We read with interest the paper by Oshita et al. (l), which proposed that ethanol in high doses produced intrahepatic vasoconstriction in perfused rat livers. We would like to comment on three main aspects of this article.

First, it is very difficult to accept the extrapolation to the in uiuo situation of determinations of portal pressure and liver resistances obtained in perfused liver models. The livers were perfused at a rate that exceeds the normal rates of blood flow by a factor of threefold to fourfold, a value that approaches the total cardiac output. It would not be unlikely, at these extremely high rates of perfusion, that very minor changes in intrahepatic vascular caliber could have effects on portal pressure that would be vastly magnified. Also, the perfusate does not contain RBCs and thus has an oxygen-carrying capacity that is 11'100 that of normal blood, increasing the susceptibility to hypoxia. Therefore data presented in this paper cannot be taken as evidence of ethanol at high concentrations causing intrahepatic vasoconstriction and hypoxic liver damage in uiuo. This interesting