The effect upon the liver of evisceration with or without hormone replacement

All, or nearly all, of the nonhepatic splanchnic viscera were removed in dogs. In most untreated dogs, the liver cells underwent changes similar to those caused by portacaval shunt, including structural deterioration of organelles and fatty metamorphosis. The rate of division of the hepatocytes, as measured by the mitotic index and by autoradiography, was depressed as were deoxyribonucleic acid synthesis and adenylate cyclase activity. These changes were restored to, or toward, normal with the intraportal administration of commercial or purified insulin but not with glucagon or epidermal growth factor. The results of both the pathologic and biochemical studies were consistent, except for an incongruity in some of the dogs in which the colon was retained.