A Study of Endotoxemia of Post Operative Period in Esophageal Varices Patients by Using Limulus Test -Discrepancy between Toxicolor and Endospecy-

Mitsuru Kikuchi, Masatoshi Watanabe*, Ryuji Nakamura*, Kazuyoshi Saito*, Shigeatsu Endo, Katsuya Inada**, Masao Yoshida**

Critical Care and Emergency Center, The First Department of Surgery* and Department of Bacteriology**, School of Medicine, Iwate Medical University

Recent advances in Limulus coloremetric testing have made it possible to quantitatively differentiate serum endotoxin specific activity (Endospecy: ES) from non-specific activity (Toxicolor: TOX) including the quantity via the other action pathway (factor G activating factors: G PAF) in addition to ES. We studied postoperative canges in the values of ES and G PAF in 13 patients with esophageal varices. Blood was takenbefore the operation and on postoperative days (POD) 1, 3 and 5, and treated before measurement by a new perchloric acid (PCA) method that we recently developed. G PAF increased on the first POD (130.6 pg/ml) from the preoperative value (46.3 pg/ml) (p<0.05), and decreased thereafter. Heating (100°C 120 min) the samples (n=5) and removing lipid from them decreased their G PAF value only slightly. The new PCA pretreatment and the conventional PCA method showed the same degree of increase in G PAF in the supernatant on POD 1. As the above experiment results show, postoperative transient endotoxemia is seemed to cause by non-endotoxic Limulus reactive substances by surgical injury.

Key words
limulus test, factor G, endotoxin, esophageal varices

Reprint requests
Mitsuru Kikuchi Critical Care and Emergency Center
19-1 Uchimaru, Morioka, 020 JAPAN

Accepted
September 14, 1994

To read the PDF file you will need Abobe Reader installed on your computer.