A method of fluorometric determination of serum bile acid using 3α-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase was investigated.
Bilirubin or other unknown contaminants remained in serumextract was proved to absorb the excitation light (wave length 350nm) and also the emission light (wave length 460nm), resulting up to 30% decrease of expected fluorescence intensity depending on the amount of contaminants remained. As the degree of these interferences differed from one sample to another, we determined recoveries of bile acid in extraction procedure as well as those of fluorescence separately, the latter being obtained by adding a NADH standard solution to each serum extract.
The range of serum bile acid concentration in normal subjects was found to be 6±5μM (mean±SD), which was slightly higher than that of previous reports. Increased serum bile acid concentrations were observed in primary biliary cirrhosis, acute hepatitis (florid stage), liver cirrhosis, drug induced hepatic injury, acute hepatitis (convalescent stage) and chronic hepatitis (active form), in decreasing order.
In 3 observed cases of acute viral hepatitis, the serum bile acid concentration did not necessarily decrease prior to the serum bilirubin level.
In acute hepatitis, serum bile acid concentration correlated with GOT and GPT levels (r=0.91 and 0.91, respectively) in florid stage and with ALP, LAP andγ-GTP (r=0.97, 0.95 and 0.86, respectively) in convalescent stage.
A low-grade negative correlation coeffIcient was obtained between serum antipyrine half life and serum bile acid level in normal subjects.
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