Effect of orthotopic transplantation of the liver on systemic and splanchnic hemodynamics in the conscious rat. Kuznetsova, Larisa V., Delai Zhao, and Anthony M. Wheatley. Department of Visceral and Transplantation Surgery, University of Berne, Inselspital, CH-3010 Berne, Switzerland.
APStracts 2:0048G, 1995.
The long-term cardiovascular effects of orthotopic liver transplantation (OLT) were studied in conscious Lewis rats with a radioactive microsphere technique. Three months after OLT with an all-suture technique for graft revascularization (s-OLT), all hemodynamic parameters were similar to control. OLT with cuffs fitted to the portal vein and infrahepatic IVC (c-OLT) led to prominent hemodynamic disturbances including (i) hyperkinetic circulation with increased cardiac index (22%, p<0.05, CI) and decreased mean arterial pressure (15%, p<0.05) and total peripheral resistance (28%, p<0.05, TPR); (ii) a slight increase in portal pressure (11.8 0.9 vs. 9.3 1.7 mmHg in control) and marked portal-systemic shunting (51 11 vs. 0.05 0.04% in control, p<0.05); (iii) increased hepatic arterial blood flow (0.49 0.06 vs. 0.27 0.04 ml.min-1.g-1 liver wt., p<0.05); (iv) splanchnic vasodilation with vascular resistance significantly (p<0.05) lower in the liver, stomach and large intestine; (v) increased blood flow and decreased vascular resistance in the kidneys and heart. Ganglionic blockade with chlorisondamine (5 mg.kg-1 body wt., iv.) indicated that the increase in CI seen in the c-OLT rats was probably sympathetically-mediated while the increase in renal blood flow was a reflection of the increase in CI. After ganglionic blocker administration, TPR and regional vascular resistances decreased to approximately the same extent in the control and c-OLT groups indicating that vascular sympathetic tone was unchanged in the c-OLT rats. Our data suggest that OLT per se (s-OLT) has no long-term effect on hemodynamics in the rat but that c-OLT causes hemodynamic changes similar to those found in portally hypertensive rats. 

Received 26 August 1994; accepted in final form 2 March 1995.
APS Manuscript Number G324-4.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Gastrointest. Liver
Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 28 March 1995.