Quantitative Analysis of Hepatic Microcirculation in Rabbits After Liver Ischemia-Reperfusion Injury Using Contrast-Enhanced Ultrasound

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that contrast-enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) can be used quantitatively to analyze microcirculation blood perfusion in hepatocellular carcinoma patients. However, limited data have described the application of CEUS in hepatic microcirculation after liver ischemic-reperfusion injury (IRI). The purpose of this study was to explore the use of CEUS quantitatively to assess liver microcirculation after liver IRI. We randomly sorted 45 New Zealand rabbits into 3 groups (15 in each). Group A was a control group in which the rabbits underwent laparotomy alone. In groups B and C, hepatic blood was blocked for 30 min. Simultaneously, rabbits in group C underwent left lateral lobe resection. After 30 min of ischemia, CEUS was conducted after 0 h, 1 h, 6 h and 24 h of reperfusion in the 3 groups. Time-intensity curves (TICs) for CEUS were constructed and quantitative parameters (maximum intensity [IMAX], rise time [RT], time to peak [TTP] and mean transit time [mTT]) were obtained. In addition, serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels were computed to estimate liver function before the operation and at 0 h, 1 h, 6 h and 24 h after reperfusion, respectively. Pathologic changes in the liver after reperfusion were also observed. Simultaneously, the correlations between serum transaminase and a variety of quantitative analysis parameters were analyzed. In groups B and C, the IMAX value decreased; whereas RT, TTP, mTT and serum ALT and AST levels increased significantly in comparison with those in group A after 0 h and 1 h of reperfusion. The pathology revealed that erythrocytes were destroyed and microcirculation was disturbed. Then, at 6 h of reperfusion, the IMAX continued to decrease. Additionally, the levels of RT, TTP, mTT and serum ALT and AST increased in comparison with those at 1 h of reperfusion. The pathologic analysis revealed inflammatory cell aggregation and leukocyte infiltration. After 24 h of reperfusion, the IMAX was reduced in comparison with that of the 6-h group. The levels of RT, TTP, mTT and serum ALT and serum AST were increased in comparison with that of the 6-h group. These findings were in accordance with the pathologic analysis. In addition, serum transaminase had a negative correlation with IMAX (p < 0.001) and a positive correlation with RT, TTP and mTT (all p < 0.001). So, in conclusion, the quantitative analysis of CEUS can be used to assess hepatic microcirculation after liver IRI.

The Effect of Microcirculation Disturbance of Peribiliary Vascular Plexus on Hepatic Bile Duct Epithelial Cells in Rats Undergoing Liver Transplantation and Postoperative Rejection Reduction by Nanocarrier Mediation

“…After the HBD of rat loses the blood supply of the hepatic artery, the normal physiological function of the HBD can be guaranteed if the blood oxygen content of the portal vein reaches a compensable level. In this study, it was confirmed that excessive liver tissue ischemia could inhibit the damage of the HBD, and HAL alone was not enough to induce ischemia of the rat HBD (15).…”

Joint inversion of gravity and gravity gradient data using smoothed L0 norm regularization algorithm with sensitivity matrix compression

“…To validate the data weighting matrix W d , three methods are used in our algorithm separately. Method 1 is not using W d , Method 2 is using the W d according to Li et al (2017), and Method 3 is using the W d proposed in this study. Figure 5 displays the variation of s1 as a function of the total number of iterations when using these methods in the default experiment (denser division with 5% Gaussian random noise).…”

“…the first term is the data misfit term and the second term is the regularization term; μ is the regularization parameter and will be introduced in Section 2.2.3. φ d is the fitting error between the observed data and the predicted data from forward modeling. A data weighting matrix W d is constructed based on Li et al (2017) and introduced here to deal with the case that fitting degree for gravity and different components of gravity gradient have large differences:…”

Effect of Hepatic Artery Spasm on a Rat Model of Hepatic Ischemia‐Reperfusion Injury

“…Color Doppler flow imaging and contrastenhanced ultrasound (CEUS) can display changes in hepatic blood vessels and the microcirculation. 6 In this study, the hemodynamic and microcirculation changes during hepatic IRI in rats were compared by color Doppler flow imaging and CEUS to observe transient microcirculation disorders. Furthermore, the vasodilator phentolamine (PHT) was used to improve the hemodynamics and microcirculation after hepatic IRI, which may provide a new strategy to reduce tissue and organ damage due to hepatic IRI.…”

“…Color Doppler flow imaging and contrast‐enhanced ultrasound (CEUS) can display changes in hepatic blood vessels and the microcirculation . In this study, the hemodynamic and microcirculation changes during hepatic IRI in rats were compared by color Doppler flow imaging and CEUS to observe transient microcirculation disorders.…”