Abstract
Drug therapy is often required in the control of hypercholesterolemia. But, none of the drugs are entirely satisfactory. For example, clofibrate increases biliary cholesterol saturation and gallstone incidence. It is well known that probucol decreases serum cholesterol. But, the mechanism of probucol is not yet clear. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of probucol on biliary lipids and the likelihood of inducing gallstone.
We studied six patients with familial hypercholesterolemia (F. H. C.) and six healthy subjects, who had never suffered from liver and biliary diseases. The patients with F. H. C. were examined before and after probucol treatment (500mg×2, daily) for 16 weeks. Biliary bile acids were determined by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC).
No free bile acids were found in any of the samples examined. The value of deoxycholic acid was significantly lower (6.9±2.1μmol/ml) (Mean±S. E.) in patients with F. H. C. than that (17.6±3.8μmol/ml) in healthy subjects. The value of other bile acids, cholic acid/chenodeoxycholic acids, and glicine-conjugates/taurine-conjugates ratio in F. H. C. did not significantly differ from those in healthy subjects. Probucol did not significantly change biliary bile acid composition.
Serum cholesterol level decreased significantly from 396.7±39.5mg/dl to 311.0±38.0mg/dl by probucol treatment.
Probucol did not influence biliary lipid composition, cholesterol saturation, and lithogenic index. We suppose that probucol does not have an isolated increase in biliary cholesterol secretion. But, in patients, whose serum cholesterol decreased more effectively by probucol treatment, biliary cholesterol molar % and lithogenic index were tending upward. More detail follow up study must be needed.
