Hepatic protein synthesis rate as an index of hepatic functional reserve in human liver

Hepatic protein synthesis rate (HPS) in human livers were measured to evaluate hepatic functional reserve. HPS of 34 patients who underwent operations were studied and were divided into 4 groups. Normal liver (n=7), obstructive jaundice (n=9), liver cirrhosis (n=8) and other hepatic dysfunction (n=10). HPS in normal liver was 6.9 ± 3.0 nmol/mg wet wt./10 min. HPS in obstructive jaundice liver was 17.1 ± 10.3, and HPS in liver cirrhosis was 47.5 ± 17.8. There were significant differences among these three groups. HPS correlated well with cholinesterase (r=-0.6533, P<0.01) and ICGR15 (r=0.7315, P<0.01). In 15 patients who received hepatectomy, relations between HPS and postoperative complication were studied. There were no complications in patients whose HPS were less than 20 nmol/mg wet wt./10 min. in major hepatic resection and in patient whose HPS were less than 40 in a segmentectomy. Even if HPS were elevated, the operations were safe in subsegmentectomy and partial hepatectomy. So HPS would be one of the good indices to evaluate hepatic functional reserve.