[Morphologic, animal experimental study on the question of sex specific liver lesions due to chenodesoxycholic acid]

Male Wistar rats were fed orally 20 mg, female rats were fed 20, 50 and 90 mg CDC/kg body weight. The animals were killed on the 5th, 14th, 20th, 30th and 60th day, female animals were killed in addition 14 days after end of treatment, their liver was examined by means of light- and electron microscopy. No pathological changes were to be seen in the light microscope. In the electron microscope we observed in male and female animals dilated bile capillaries and intracytoplasmic vacuoles, in female animals more over alterations of mitochondria and an increase of peribiliary lysosomes. Sex-linked differences were not to be detected. In female animals the findings were quantitatively better discernible. Even a tetrafold increase of dosage in female rats produced no change in findings. 14 days after end of therapy no alterations were visible any more. It is being assumed that CDCA or its metabolite lithocholic acid exert some influence upon the bile secretory apparatus of the liver cell.