Depletion of Bile Acids and Bilirubin in Dogs with Biliary Obstruction by Plasmaperfusion of Usp-Charcoal-Coated Glass Beads

Patients with severe, inoperable cholestasis and intractable pruritus not responding to conventional medical therapy might benefit from a depletion of their bile acid pool by sorbent perfusion since accumulated bile acids are possibly responsible for their itching. In vitro, USP-charcoal-coated glass beads removed bile acids from human plasma far better than any other sorbent tested. In order to demonstrate the safety and efficacy of charcoal plasmaperfusion in vivo, five dogs underwent plasmapheresis one week following cholecystectomy and bile duct ligation, and 2.2 ± 0.2 (x̄ ± SD) times their plasma volume was passed over a column containing 400 ml of charcoal-coated glass beads prior to reinfusion. During the procedure the plasma bile acid concentration was reduced by 40.2 ± 4.0% and the bilirubin level by 48.2 ± 3.3%. The columns, whose capacity was far from being saturated, retained 1.3 ± 0.4 times the pre-perfusion plasma pool of bile acids (1.1 ± 0.2 for bilirubin) suggesting that substantial amounts of bile acids and bilirubin were mobilized from tissue stores. The procedure was well tolerated by the animals and might have promising clinical applications.