Metabolism of deoxycholic acid in bile fistula patients.

Although it has been assumed that the secondary bile acid deoxycholic acid is not rehydroxylated by the human liver, little direct evidence is available to support this assumption. To investigate the metabolism of deoxycholic acid in man, deoxycholic acid-(14)C was given intravenously to two patients with complete external bile fistulas. After hydrolysis of the bile salts and chromatographic separation of bile acids, more than 94% of the radioactivity was found in deoxycholic acid and the remainder was scattered in several small unidentified peaks, none of which was cholic acid. Approximately 85% of deoxycholate was excreted as glycine conjugates and 13% as taurine conjugates in this experiment. No detectable sulfate esters were found. These results indicate that the metabolism of deoxycholic acid in man involves only the reconjugation with glycine and taurine without rehydroxylation to cholic acid or sulfation.