| Abstract: | ![]()
Abstract: Bisacodyl (=BIS) and picosulphate (=PICO) have been given perorally to postoperative gallstone patients, who have undergone biliary tract surgery with the insertion of an indwelling T-tube. The doses corresponded to 7.7 mg of their common free diphenol desacetylbisacodyl (=DES). The bile was sampled in hourly fractions from the external limb of the T-tube; these fractions were analysed by a modification of the HPLC method previously used to study biliary excretion in the rat. In the BIS-patients (n=8), DES in conjugated form occurred in significant concentration already in the first fractions; peak excretion values equivalent to 4–8 μg DES/ml bile were reached in 2–5 hours. Unchanged BIS could not be detected, and the concentration levels of unconjugated DES were insignificant. The PICO-patients (n=8) on the other hand showed low DES concentrations (conjugated+free≤0.5 μg DES/ml) in all fractions, or low initial concentrations followed by a more or less pronounced rise in the later fractions. These results are, qualitatively, as in the rat. However, the dose fractions excreted in bile (assuming a total hepatic output of 50 ml/hour) seem smaller than those to be expected from rat experiments, at least as far as BIS is concerned. |
