1987 Volume 48 Issue 2 Pages 192-197
The causes of upper digestive tract bleeding after hepatic abscission were analyzed in this study by dividing subjects into 2 groups (cirrhosis and cirrhosis-free) and taking liver function, blood coagulation surgical stress, and the kinetics of gastric acid secretion into account. The results were as follows.
Upper digestive tract bleeding occured in 1 case of 15 (6.7%) in the cirrhosis-free group and in 5 cases of 19 (26.3%) in the cirrhosis group. One case was fatal. Postoperative upper digestive tract bleeding was found to have no clear relationship to the extent of the hepatic abscission or to the volume of bleeding during surgery. When compared with the cirrhosis-free controls patients with cirrhosis showed significantly worse values of GPT, TTT, ICGK, ΔIRI/ΔBS, IRI max, and hepaplastin. In the cirrhosis group the preoperative MAO value was ortho-acid (5_??_20 mEq/h) in 10 cases and hypo-acid (below 5 mEq/h) in 8 cases. All of the 5 cases which developed bleeding after surgery were in the orthoacid condition. These results indicate that patients showing a preoperative MAO value of over 5 mEq/h need to be given cimetidine positively, starting immediately after surgery.
