HYPOTHESIS/OBJECTIVES: To determine whether the washout ratio in the hepatic vein (HV) measured by contrast-enhanced ultrasonography (CEUS) can distinguish between inflammatory and noninflammatory hepatic disorders in dogs.
ANIMALS: Forty-one client-owned dogs with hepatic disorders including 14 with hepatitis, 7 with primary hypoplasia of the portal vein (PHPV), 9 with congenital portosystemic shunt (cPSS), and 11 with other hepatopathy were enrolled. Six dogs without hepatic disease also were evaluated as healthy controls.
METHODS: Dogs with hepatic disorders were prospectively included. Contrast-enhanced ultrasonography of the HV was performed for 2 minutes. Washout ratio was defined as the attenuation rate from peak intensity to the intensity at the end of the CEUS study.
RESULTS: Washout ratio in the hepatitis group (median, 18.0%; range, 2.0-37.0%) was significantly lower than that of the PHPV (median, 52.2%; range, 11.5-86.3%), cPSS (median, 60.0%; range, 28.6-77.4%), other hepatopathy (median, 70.5%; range, 26.6-88.4%), and normal (median, 78.0%; range, 60.7-91.7%) groups. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve for hepatitis was 0.960, with a 95% confidence interval (CI) of 0.853-0.990. Washout ratio ≤37.1% resulted in a sensitivity of 100% (95% CI, 78.5-100%) and specificity of 85.2% (95% CI, 67.5-94.1%) for the prediction of hepatitis.
CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL IMPORTANCE: Washout ratio can distinguish hepatitis from the other noninflammatory disorders with high accuracy. This result might reflect impaired Kupffer cell phagocytosis in dogs with hepatitis.
PURPOSE: In this study, we aimed to discover the role of oil palm phenolics (OPP) in influencing the gene expression changes caused by an atherogenic diet in mice.
METHODS: We fed mice with either a low-fat normal diet (14.6 % kcal/kcal fat) with distilled water, or a high-fat atherogenic diet (40.5 % kcal/kcal fat) containing cholesterol. The latter group was given either distilled water or OPP. We harvested major organs such as livers, spleens and hearts for microarray gene expression profiling analysis. We determined how OPP changed the gene expression profiles caused by the atherogenic diet. In addition to gene expression studies, we carried out physiological observations, blood hematology as well as clinical biochemistry, cytokine profiling and antioxidant assays on their blood sera.
RESULTS: Using Illumina microarrays, we found that the atherogenic diet caused oxidative stress, inflammation and increased turnover of metabolites and cells in the liver, spleen and heart. In contrast, OPP showed signs of attenuating these effects. The extract increased unfolded protein response in the liver, attenuated antigen presentation and processing in the spleen and up-regulated antioxidant genes in the heart. Real-time quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction validated the microarray gene expression fold changes observed. Serum cytokine profiling showed that OPP attenuated inflammation by modulating the Th1/Th2 axis toward the latter. OPP also increased serum antioxidant activity to normal levels.
CONCLUSION: This study suggests that OPP may possibly attenuate atherosclerosis and other forms of cardiovascular disease.