Quantitative ultrastructural analysis of cirrhotic rat liver parenchyma

In order to advance our understanding of the pathogenesis of liver cirrhosis and to improve our ability to diagnosis the disease, we have been carrying out objective and quantitative analyses of the histological and ultrastructural morphology of animal and human cirrhotic livers. In our original study we compared cirrhotic liver induced by simultaneous treatment with CCl4 and phenobarbital to untreated and phenobarbital-treated controls. The significance of the non-parenchymal (i.e. the non-lobular and non-nodular) components to the hypertrophy of this experimental liver cirrhosis was established. Although significant differences in parenchymal features were present, their significance to cirrhosis per se was confounded by the consequential effects of phenobarbital on the parenchymal hepatocytes. Because of the importance of liver parenchyma in liver function and because parenchyma is well sampled during human liver biopsies and therefore is well suited for diagnositc purposes, we decided to ultrastructural1y further elucidate the morphometric parameters of liver parenchyma in cirrhosis.