Abstract
The liver surface fluorescence after fluorescein (F) injection was evaluated in rats treated with CCl4 to produce acute and chronic liver damage. Fluorescent photography techniques were improved by the use of Olympus CLEF10 instead of the usual light source apparatus for gastric fiberendoscopy. With this photographic improvement, sharp serial pictures were obtained. In the normal rat liver, fluorescence appeared in the periportal area 5 seconds after F injection and rapidly spread toward the pericentral area. In the acutely damaged liver with CCl4, bright and coarse granular fluorescence corresponding to the pericentral necrosis was observed from 20 seconds to 5 minutes after F injection. In the chronically damaged liver treated with CCl4 for 12 weeks, fluorescence of the surface of the liver revealed irregular in distribution and bright fluorescence showing mesh-like pattern, corresponding to the interstitial area surrounding the pseudolobules. These pictures were observed from 20 seconds untill 5 minutes after F injection. These observations suggest that the liver surface fluorescence at 5 seconds after F injection, to some degree, represents changes in the portal area, and fluorescence occuring from 20 seconds to 5 minutes after F injection represents changes in a necrotic or inter-stitial area. These results in the rat liver model suggest that the observation of liver surface fluorescence reflects the underlying pathophysiology and deserves further study.
