The effect of xylene exposure on the liver

The author, with the xylene exposure of mice, rats and rabbits (sc, ip, per os, inhalation), as well as with xylene inhalation following the partial hepatectomy of rats, or the ligation of their common bile duct, wanted to find out whether xylene did have a selective or elective hepatotoxic effect. Using morphological (routine histological, enzyme-histochemical, electron microscopical, morphometrical), biochemical, clinical and analytical-chemical methods, it was found, that the xylene increased the activity of the hepatic biotransformation system, its adaptation to the xylene exposure; the xylene had neither selective, nor elective hepatotoxic effect in the examined species. The effect of xylene increasing the biotransformation ability of the liver is not inhibited by partial hepatectomy and ligation of the common bile duct; the so-called enzyme induction, which evolves at the effect of xylene, hinders the mitotic activity following the partial hepatectomy (defensive ability against xenobiotics takes priority over regeneration).