Injection corrosion studies of intrahepatic vascular and bile duct patterns in normal and diseased livers

Abstract

An investigation of injection corrosion casts in a series of normal and cirrhotic livers revealed consistent expansion of the hepatic arterial beds, decrease in portal vascular beds and increase in intercommunication between hepatic arteries and portal veins. Big regeneration nodules contained only arterial injectate. It was also demonstrated that the blood supply in primary liver cancer was solely arterial. Moreover, the arteries found in big tumor nodules had abnormal patterns of branching, an increase in number and caliber, and cavernous transformation. In extrahepatic obstruction of the bile duct, there was selective involvement of large intrahepatic bile ducts usually up to the fifth tributaries, which could rarely be visualised by conventional cholangiography. Uniform dilatation of intrahepatic bile ducts with clubbing or cystic formation at the end were constant findings in livers with opisthorchiasis infection.