STUDIES ON THE EXPERIMENTAL ANEMIA PRODUCED BY THE LIGATION OF THE SPLENIC VEIN IN DOGS
1956 Volume 44 Issue 12 Pages 1146-1154
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1956 Volume 44 Issue 12 Pages 1146-1154
In 1938, Bock and Frenzel succeeded in produceing pancytopenia by the ligation of the splenic vein in rabbits. The results of the experiment was interpreted as supporting evidence of the existence of splenic hormones with an inhibitory influence on hematopoiesis. It was believed that the ligation of the splenic vein, blocking the splenic blood from the liver, resulted in the splenic hormones reaching the bone marrow in a higher concentration than normal, and that liver was capable of attenuating or otherwise an affecting these hormones.
Jombres and Nielsen carried out the similar experiment with simultaneous bone marrow studies and Jombres came to the view that the pancytopenia occured as a result of an inhibited emission of the cells from the marrow with an accumlation of immature cell types, and Nielsen supposed the changes in the peripheral blood due to an incresed destruction of blood cells in the congested spleen because of no changes in the bone marrow.
In the following we should give a brief accounts of the results of some experiments in dogs, in which we have repeated Bock and Frenzel's procedure with or without splenectomy following the ligation of the splenic vein.
1) The ligation of the splenic vein blocking venous return of the spleen to the liver resulted in normochromic and normocytic anemia with slight reticulocytopenia and initially moderate depressed erythropoiesis in bone marrow.
2) The congestion of the spleen improved quickly after the ligation of the splenic vein and the collateral communications of splenic vein to portal vessel were accomplished as early in the 2nd postoperative week.
3) The splenectomy after 4, 7, 14, and 28 postoperative days did not give remarkable influences on the course of the anemia.
It is suggested that the anemia produced by the ligation of the splenic vein is due to the initial and temporal depression of the erythropoiesis and that the rôle of the spleen on this anemia must not be evaluated so excessively and the data obtained give not definite information on the pathogenesis of the anemia.
