Liver regeneration after hepatectomy was studied using clinical examples.
Biopsy specimens from 19cases involving normal (non-cirrhotic) liver with two consecutive hepatectomies were used for the study.
At first operation, double segmentectomy, single segmentectomy and sub-segmentectomy were performed in 3, 10 and 6 cases, respectively.
Acinus areas and terminal portal tract densities were measured for specimens from both the first and second hepatectomies and the results compared.
Increase in hepatic acinus area as well as decrease in terminal portal tract density were found to be significant (p=0.0001 and p=0.002, respectively) for the 13 cases involving single and double segmentectomies.
The observed decrease of terminal portal tract density in non-cirrhotics who reseived single or double segmentectomy appeared to lie a result of hepatocyte growth overwhelming the development of terminal portal tract.
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