Impaired liver clearance of bacteria in rats with chronic biliary obstruction

125I-labeled E. coli was injected into the biliary tree of normal rats and rats with 3 weeks' obstruction of the common bile duct to investigate the liver clearance capacity for bacteria. Bile was collected during 15 min, immediately, 1 h, 4 h, or 24 h after the injection. Tissue specimens from the liver, lungs, spleen and kidneys, and blood and urine specimens were collected simultaneously. In normal rats, 40% of the bacteria was recovered in the bile immediately after the injection, whereas 30% was already trapped in the liver. Incubation of the bacteria in the bile duct for 1h, 4h, and 24h resulted in liver retentions of 43%, 15%, and 4%, respectively. The recovery in the bile was 13% after 1-h incubation, and further prolongation of the incubation did not result in a significant decrease. In contrast to these findings, 70% of the injected bacteria was retained in the biliary tree in rats with chronic biliary obstruction (P less than 0.05) as compared to normal rats) and only 1% was trapped in the liver (P less than 0.005) 15 min after injection. One-hour incubation of bacteria in the bile duct decreased the retention in the bile to 30%, but the retention in the liver increased only slightly in these animals. Four and 24 h after injection less than 30% of the bacteria was retained in the hepato-biliary system. Most of these animals showed almost no radioactivity exceeding the background count in the blood, urine, spleen, lungs, and kidneys 15 min after injection.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)