PURPOSE:To present a review about a comparative study of bile duct ligation versus carbon tetrachloride Injection for inducing experimental liver cirrhosis. METHODS:This research was made through Medline/PubMed and SciELO web sites looking for papers on the content "induction of liver cirrhosis in rats". We have found 107 articles but only 30 were selected from 2004 to 2011. RESULTS:The most common methods used for inducing liver cirrhosis in the rat were administration of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and bile duct ligation (BDL). CCl4 has induced cirrhosis from 36 hours to 18 weeks after injection and BDL from seven days to four weeks after surgery. CONCLUSION:For a safer inducing cirrhosis method BDL is better than CCl4 because of the absence of toxicity for researches and shorter time for achieving it.

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Hepatic hemangiomas are congenital vascular malfor mations, considered the most common benign me senchymal hepatic tumors, composed of masses of blood vessels that are atypical or irregular in arran gement and size. Hepatic hemangiomas can be divided into two major groups: capillary hemangiomas and cavernous hemangiomas These tumors most frequently affect females (80%) and adults in their fourth and fifth decades of life. Most cases are asymptomatic although a few patients may present with a wide variety of cli nical symptoms, with spontaneous or traumatic rup ture being the most severe complication. In cases of spontaneous rupture, clinical manifestations consist of sudden abdominal pain, and anemia secondary to a haemoperitoneum. Disseminated intravascular coagulo pathy can also occur. Haemodynamic instability and signs of hypovolemic shock appear in about one third of cases. As the size of the hemangioma increases, so does the chance of rupture. Imaging studies used in the diagnosis of hepatic hemangiomas include ultra sonography, dynamic contrastenchanced computed tomography scanning, magnetic resonance imaging, hepatic arteriography, digital subtraction angiography, and nuclear medicine studies. In most cases hepatic hemangiomas are asymptomatic and should be followed up by means of periodic radiological examination. Sur gery should be restricted to specific situations. Ab solute indications for surgery are spontaneous or trau matic rupture with hemoperitoneum, intratumoral blee ding and consumptive coagulopathy (KassabachMerrit syndrome). In a patient presenting with acute abdo minal pain due to unknown abdominal disease, sponta neous rupture of a hepatic tumor such as a hemangio ma should be considered as a rare differential diagno sis.

Accurate knowledge of the anatomy of the bile ducts is critical for successfully hepato-biliary surgery. We describe the anatomical variations of the confluence of the bile ducts, their branches patterns, frequency and classification. From 1996 to 2011, we have collected data of the bile duct confluence. 2,032 and 1,014 anatomical variations of right and left bile ducts, respectively, were reviewed and classified according to the branching pattern. The frequencies of each type of the right hepatic duct (RHD) were as follows: Type A1-1,247 (61.3%); Type A2-296 (14.5%); Type A3-272 (13.3%); Type A4-124 (6.1%); Type A5-21 (1%) and others-72 (3.5%) and, for the left hepatic duct (LHD) was as follows: Type B1-773 (76.2%); Type B2-153 (15%); Type B3-38 (3.7%); Type B4-9 (0.8%); Type B5-29 (2.8%) and others-12 (1.1%). Atypical branching patterns of both the right and left hepatic ducts were found in 14 and 8%, respectively. The two most common variations of the RHD were right anterior and posterior hepatic ducts join together to form the RHD and trifurcation where the RHD is absent and right anterior and posterior hepatic ducts join directly to the confluence with the LHD to form the common hepatic duct. The two most common variations in the LHD were segment IV drainage to the left and right hepatic ducts.

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We prospectively studied anatomical variations and diseases of the liver in 100 consecutive donor operations during a period of 1 year. The "normal" arterial anatomy with a single hepatic artery (HA) from the celiac trunk was seen in 76% of all cases. Seven of twelve different major variations of the HA may be considered as "rare", one of which cannot be found in the earlier literature. During harvesting, 6% of the livers were discarded, 3% on the basis of infection and 1% because of a polycystic disease. Two cases were rejected as the liver was found to be severely hypoperfused or hypoxic in an otherwise stable donor. Severe steatosis was macroscopically and histologically diagnosed in 3% of the cases, and in three donors a benign tumour was found in the liver or in the gall bladder. Two primarily nonfunctioning livers in the present series of 94 recipient operations were retrieved from this group of severely steatotic livers. As the donor liver was totally "normal" in only 2 out of 3 of the cases, the present study underlines the importance of searching for extremely variable anomalies of the HA and for liver-related diseases during organ harvesting.

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