Advantage of preoperative portal vein occlusion for hepatectomy that exceeds portal vein occluded lobes.

BACKGROUND

The purpose of our study was to examine the effect of preoperative portal vein (PV) occlusion on hepatic reserve function after extended hepatectomy that is an excision of areas beyond the PV occluded lobes.

METHODS

Male Wistar rats were divided into three groups and underwent a two-stage operation: a PVL-hepatectomy group (ligation of the PV [PVL] of the left and median lobes followed by hepatectomy of the right lobes together with the PV occluded lobes), a sham-88% hepatectomy group (sham operation without PVL followed by hepatectomy corresponding to the lobes excised in the PVL-hepatectomy group), and a sham-67% hepatectomy group (sham operation followed by hepatectomy of the left and median lobes to approximate the volume excised in the PVL-hepatectomy group). In all subjects, hepatectomy was carried out 7 days after the PVL or sham operation. On days 0, 1, 2, and 3 after hepatectomy, liver weight, histologic elements, DNA synthesis rates, energy charge, adenine nucleotides, and lipoperoxide levels of the remaining liver were determined.

RESULTS

In the sham-88% hepatectomy group, the volume of resected liver was 88.2% +/- 0.5%. In the PVL-hepatectomy group it was 69.1% +/- 0.8%, although anatomically identical lobes were excised. At the time of hepatectomy, DNA synthesis, hepatic concentrations of adenine nucleotides and lipoperoxide, and serum liver function tests showed similar results in all three groups. The survival rate 3 days after hepatectomy was significantly low (53%) in the sham-88% hepatectomy group, whereas it was 100% in the PVL-hepatectomy and sham-67% hepatectomy groups. The gain in liver weight per day was significantly lower in the sham-88% hepatectomy group than in the other two groups. The decline in hepatic energy charge after hepatectomy was less, with less activated DNA synthesis, in the PVL-hepatectomy group compared with the sham-88% hepatectomy and sham-67% hepatectomy groups. Lipoperoxide concentration in the PVL-hepatectomy group was significantly lower than that in the sham-88% hepatectomy and sham-67% hepatectomy groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Preoperative PV occlusion not only increases the remaining liver volume but also is advantageous to hepatic reserve after hepatectomy that exceeds PV occluded lobes.