[Biochemical and ultrastructural changes in the liver of rats with a severe form of acute radiation sickness].

Biochemical and ultrastructural studies were carried out on the liver of male rats with a severe form of acute radiation disease. The animals were treated only once with a total dose of 6.7 Gy by means of a gamma-unit Rokus at the rate of 0.9 Gy per min. It was found that with the acute and severe form of radiation disease thus produced the activity of liver enzymes with cytoplasmic localization such as SDG, GPT, and GOT strongly rose in the blood plasma over the first 24 hours following treatment. The activity of ChE as an enzyme that was specific of the endoplasmic reticulum also rose. The normal ultrastructure of hepatocytes was unaffected over the first 24 hours after irradiation. Within the period of the clinical manifestation of the disease, however, there set in strongly expressed destructive changes in the mitochondria (from the eighth to the fifteenth day). It was concluded that the changes in the liver that were characteristic of the severe form of radiation disease set in early.