Acute and chronic splanchnic blood flow responses to portacaval shunt in the normal dog

Portacaval shunt increases hepatic arterial blood flow, and the magnitude of this response is important clinically. To document persistence of this hyperemia we measured splanchnic regional blood flow by the microsphere technique before and after end-to-side portacaval shunt in dogs. The immediate postshunt increase in hepatic arterial blood flow returned to control 3 wk later, replaced by increases in pancreatic, duodenal, and jejunal blood flow. Any hypothesis for the compensatory relationship between hepatic arterial and portal venous blood flows needs to encompass these results.