LIVER DYSFUNCTION FOLLOWING ABDOMINAL OPERATIONS

Abstract

SEVERAL reports in the literature deal with the effect of surgical operations on liver function.¹The hippuric acid and sulfobromophthalein (bromsulphalein^®) sodium tests have been used in several studies. Tagnon, Robbins and Nichols²reported changes in the sulfobromophthalein clearance following extra-abdominal operations. In their series of patients there was no consistent postoperative alteration in the thymol turbidity or cephalin flocculation reactions. The work reported below describes the effect of abdominal operation on the sulfobromophthalein clearance, cephalin flocculation and thymol turbidity. Abnormalities of the two former reactions were observed in a high proportion of the cases reported here. In addition, since sulfobromophthalein clearance parallels bilirubin clearance in dogs,³an attempt was made to correlate the incidence of postoperative hyperbilirubinemia in this series of patients with the impairment of the sulfobromophthalein clearance. <h3>MATERIAL AND METHODS</h3> The observations were made on patients admitted to the surgical services at Memorial