Splanchnic and systemic hemodynamics in early abstinence and after ethanol administration in non-cirrhotic alcoholic patients

Early heterogeneous enhancement of the liver: Magnetic resonance imaging findings and clinical significance

“…Third, decreased or uneven distribution of portal perfusion due to varying tissue pressure in varying extent of acute injury superimposed on chronic liver damage results in a compensatory increase of hepatic arterial perfusion. Previous researchers reported that portal perfusion was affected by multiple factors associated with chronic liver damage (13–15). Heterogeneous enhancement of liver parenchyma on CT during arterial portography, reflecting heterogeneous portal venous supply, is often observed in patients with cirrhosis (15).…”

Hepatic Elimination of Indocyanine Green with Special Reference to Distribution Kinetics and the Influence of Plasma Protein Binding

“…Third, heterogeneity will affect the kinetics of uptake of protein bound ligands (Section 8.5). Heterogeneity was unimportant in the perfused rat liver (Brauer et al 1956;Keiding & Chiarantini 1978;Keiding & Priisholm 1984), perfused pig liver (Keiding et al 1974), and the normal human liver (Keiding & Skak 1988;Silva et al 1994) where observations were in agreement with the sinusoidal perfusion model. In contrast, K increased with F in cirrhotic livers from rats (Cardoso et al 1994b) and humans (Cardoso et al 1994a), which may reflect heterogeneity.…”

Comparison of liver hemodynamics according to doppler ultrasonography in alcoholic patients subtyped by Cloninger classification and non-alcoholic healthy subjects

“…In some studies, increase in hepatic blood flow has been defined following administration of ethanol, while others have suggested the contrary. Therefore, pathogenesis of portal hypertension and the presence or absence of hemodynamic effects of alcohol intoxication in alcoholic patients with or without cirrhosis is yet to be understood (4,5).…”

“…It is suggested that the portal hypertension in alcoholic liver disease could be related to morphological hepatic changes like fibrosis or regenerative nodules, sclerosis at central veins, enlargement of hepatocytes and collagenization of Disse spaces. An increase in portal blood flow can be an accompanying factor as well (4–7). The overall hemodynamic effect of the ethanol intake on splanchnic hemodynamics is an increase in portal and hepatic blood flow.…”

“…However, a correlation between increased portal and hepatic blood flow and portal hypertension could not be detected. This absence of correlation may suggest that, besides increase in portal and hepatic blood flow, other mechanisms such as hepatic resistance are in charge for increased portal pressure (4). In alcohol dependent patients possible pathologies expected to develop like cirrhosis, portal hypertension, or alcoholic hepatitis can be evaluated by ultrasound examination.…”